
(bss. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Little Masterpieces 

Edited by Bliss Perry 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

• 1 r- / 

~^ ^ I- 
EARLY SPEECHES 
SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 
COOPER UNION SPEECH • 
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES 
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 
SELECTED LETTERS 

Lincoln's lost speech^ ^, cd)PV 

18€B 



NEW YORK 



DOU^Ij^AY & 







H^^A 



Copyright, 1894, by John G. 

NiCOLAY AND JOHN HAY. 



Copyright, i8g8, by 

DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 



Acknoivledgment is due The Century Co. for per- 
missioji to use selectwiis fro7n the text of their 
complete edition of the Works of Abra- 
ham Lincoln., edited by John G. 
Nicolay and John Hay. 



He knew to bide his time, 

And can his fame abide, 

Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 

Till the wise years decide. 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 

But at last silence comes ; 

These all are gone, and, standing like a 
tower. 

Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not 
blame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first Ameri- 
can." 

Lowell, Commemoration Ode. 



Introduction 



Editor's Introduction 

" It is not too much to say of him ["LincohiJ 
that he is among tlie greatest masters of prose 
ever produced by the EngHsh race." — The 
{Lo7tdon) Spectator. 

It is said that Nathaniel Hawthorne was once 
asked the secret of his style. That consummate 
writer replied — no doubt with one of his in- 
scrutable smiles — "It is the result of a great 
deal of practice. It comes from the desire to 
tell the simple truth as honestly and vividly as 
I can." The flawless perfection of Lincoln's 
style in his noblest utterances eludes a final 
analysis as completely as the exquisite pages of 
our great romancer, yet in striving to under- 
stand some of the causes of that perfection we 
may use the hint which Hawthorne has given 
us 

Lincoln had " a great deal of practice" in the 
art of speech long before his debates against 
Douglas made him known to the nation : end- 
less talks in country stores, endless jests in 
frontier taverns, twenty years of pleading in 
the circuit courts, twenty-five years of constant 
political discussion. His law partner has noted 
his incessant interest in the precise meaning of 
words. His reputation for clear statement to 



Introduction 

a jury was the result of his passion for putting 
ideas into language " plain enough for any boy 
to comprehend." Lincoln's mind worked slow- 
ly, and he was long in finding the words that 
exactly expressed his thoughts, but when he 
had once hit upon the word or phrase he never 
forgot it. " He read less and thought more 
than any man in the country," says Herndon 
with a sort of pride, and it should be remem- 
bered that throughout his gradual development 
as a master of his mother tongue he was pre- 
occupied, not with words for their own sake, 
but solely with words as the garb of ideas. 

Furthermore, Lincoln's mental characteristics 
illustrate with singular force the remark of 
Hawthorne that style is the result of a desire to 
tell the simple truth as honestly and vividly as 
one can. He was " Honest Abe ;" not indeed 
so innocent and frank and unsophisticated as 
many people believed ; not a man who told all 
he knew, by any means ; but yet a man essen- 
tially fair-minded. He looked into the nature 
of things. He read human nature dispassion- 
ately. A man of intense feeling, he was never- 
theless, in mature life at least, without senti- 
mentality. He was not fooled by phrases. As 
a debater, he made no attempt to mislead his 
audience ; as President, when he found frank 
conversation impossible, he told a humorous 
story of more or less remote bearing upon the 
subject in hand. He kept inviolate his mental 
integrity. And without integrity of mind the 



Introduction 

would-be master of speech becomes a mere jug- 
gler with words. In the letter to Thurlow 
"Weed concerning the Second Inaugural Ad- 
dress, Lincoln described that memorable utter- 
ance as " a truth which I thought needed to be 
told." No description could be more noble. 

That Lincoln's gift of humor added much to 
the vividness and homely naturalness of his 
style will not be questioned. But the connec- 
tion between fair-mindedness and humor is not 
always remembered. The man of true humor 
— not, of course, the mere joker or wit — sees all 
sides of a proposition. He recognizes instinc- 
tively its defects of proportion, its incongruities. 
It is the great humorists who have drawn the 
truest pictures of human life, because their 
humor was a constant corrective against one- 
sidedness. Lincoln's mind had the impartial- 
ity, the freedom from prejudice, the flexibility 
of sympathy, which belongs to the humorist 
alone. 

It has sometimes been argued that his fond- 
ness for story-telling showed a deficient com- 
mand of language ; that knowing his inability 
to express his ideas directly, he conveyed them 
indirectly by an anecdote. It would probably 
be nearer the truth to say that the stories were 
a proof of his understanding of the limitations 
of language. He divined the boundaries of ex- 
pression through formal speech, and knew 
when a picture, a parable, would best serve his 
turn. 



Introduction 

As great responsibilities came to rest upon 
him, as the harassing problems of our national 
life pressed closer and closer, the lonely Presi- 
dent grew more clear-eyed and certain of his 
course. The politician was lost in the states- 
man. His whole life, indeed, was a process of 
enfranchisement from selfish and narrow views. 
He stood at last on a serener height than other 
men of his epoch, breathing an ampler air, per- 
ceiving more truly the eternal realities. And 
his style changed as the man changed. What 
he saw and felt at his solitary final post he has 
in part made known, through a slowly perfected 
instrument of expression. So transparent is 
the language of the Gettysburg Address and of 
the Second Inaugural that one may read through 
them, as through a window, Lincoln's wise and 
gentle and unselfish heart. Other praise is 
needless. 

The selections included in this volume are 
designed to illustrate the steady development 
of Lincoln's literary power. They begin with 
a few specimens of his earlier style, which was 
direct, forceful, and manly, but not markedly 
better than that of many of his contemporaries. 
The famous " Lost Speech" of May 29, 1856, 
has been reprinted in the Appendix. As it 
does not present Lincoln's exact language 
throughout, it could scarcely be placed with the 
other selections, but its personal and historical 
interest is so great that lovers of Lincoln will 
be glad to have it preserved in convenient form. 



Introduction 

With the Springfield speech of June i6, 1S58, 

■ incoln entered upon a new phase of his career. 
. 's careful enunciation of a great political prin- 
•I'ple made it the turning-point of a memorable 
„-impaign. The significance of its opening 
'paragraph, in particular, has been discussed in 
' ■ e prefatory note to the speech itself, and need 

. )t be repeated here. The space-limit of the 

'-olumes in this series forbids the presentation 

nr any of the entire speeches of the joint debates 

■\ith Douglas, and so closely inter-related, so 

"ill of allusion and cross reference are all of 

. lose speeches that detached paragraphs would 

. ive little conception of the qualities displayed 

.:y either of the debaters. The Cooper Union 

oeech of February 25, 1S60, however, goes 

' ^er much of the ground of the Douglas de- 

..ates. 

The remaining speeches in the volume belong 

■ ) Lincoln's career as President. They range 
•om the most informal addresses to the In- 

;;ugurals. The Emancipation Proclamation is 

:, Iso included. The letters exhibit still another 

de of Lincohi's strange and fascinating indi- 

iduality. In compression and clear-cut force, 

In their humor and homely pathos, in their 

shrewd knowledge of character, these letters 

are among the most extraordinary ever written. 

While they afford new glimpses into Lincoln's 

■ ature, it is true of them, as it is of his other 

vrritings, that they express without explaining 

t iie secret of his personality. One closes a vol- 



Introduction 

ume of Lincoln's addresses and letters with 
something of the feeling that Walt Whitman 
has uttered with regard to Lincoln's portraits : 
" None of the artists or pictures has caught the 
deep though subtle and indirect expression of 
this man's face. There is soinethmg else 
therer Bliss Perry. 



x\v 



CONTENTS 




^ 






PAGE 


Editor's Introduction 


V 


Speeches — Selected 




The Whigs and the Mexican War 


3 


Notes for a Law Lecture 


7 


Fragment on Slavery . 


II 


The Dred Scott Decision and the 




Declaration of Independence 


13 


Springfield Speech 


23 


Cooper Union Speech . 


37 


Farewell at Springfield 


70 


Speech in Independence Hall, Phila 




delphia 


71 


First Inaugural Address 


74 


Emancipation Proclamation 


90 


Gettysburg Address 


94 


Speech to i66th Ohio Regiment 


96 


Response to a Serenade 


98 


Reply to Committee on Electoral Coun 


t lOI 


Second Inaugural Address 


102 


Letters 




To McClellan . 


109 


To Seward 


III 


To Greeley 


113 


To the Workingmen of Manchester 


115 


To Hooker 


118 


To Burnside 


120 


To Edward Everett 


121 


To Grant 


122 


To Mrs. Bixby . 


123 


To Thurlow Weed 


124 


Appendix 

Lincoln's Lost Speech . 


127 



Selected Speeches 



Selections from Lincoln's 
Speeches and Letters 

The Whigs and the Mexican War 
July 27, 1848 

[An extract from a speech delivered in the 
House of Representatives while Lincoln was a 
Congressman from Illinois. The speech was in 
support of General Taylor, the Whig candidate 
for the Presidency, Lincoln had opposed Presi- 
dent Polk's declaration of war against Mexico, 
had introduced resolutions of inquiry on that 
subject, and made a strong speech on Jan- 
uary 12, 1S48, explaining his own attitude. 
The speech of July 27 was full of wit, at times 
more caustic than refined. The extract here 
presented sums up clearly Lincoln's views as 
to the Mexican War, and is a good example of 
his best parliamentary style at this stage of his 
career.] 

But, as General Taylor is, par excellejice, 
the hero of the Mexican War, and as you Demo- 
crats say w^e Whigs have always opposed the 
war, you think it must be very awkward and 
embarrassing for us to go for General Taylor. 
The declaration that we have always opposed 
the war is true or false, according as one may 
understand the term " oppose the war." If to 
say " the war was unnecessarily and unconsti- 



Abraham Lincoln 

tutionally commenced by the President" be op- 
posing the war, then the Whigs have very gen- 
erally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken 
at all, they have said this ; and they have said 
it on what has appeared good reason to them. 
The marching an army into the midst of a 
peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the 
inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops 
and other property to destruction, to you may 
appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovok- 
ing procedure ; but it does not appear so to us. 
So to call such an act, to us appears no other 
than a naked, impudent absurdity, and we 
speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war 
had begun, and had become the cause of the 
country, the giving of our money and our blood, 
in common with yours, was support of the war, 
then it is not true that we have always opposed 
the war. With few individual exceptions, you 
have constantly had our votes here for all the 
necessary supplies. And, more than this, you 
have had the services, the blood, and the lives 
of our political brethren in every trial and on 
every field. The beardless boy and the mature 
man, the humble and the distinguished — you 
have had them. Through suffering and death, 
by disease and in battle, they have endured and 
fought and fell with you. Clay and Webster 
each gave a son, never to be returned. From 
the State of my own residence, besides other 
worthy but less known Whig names, we sent 
Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin ; they 
4 



The Whigs and Mexican War 

all fought, and one fell , and in the fall of that 
one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the 
Whigs few in number, or laggard in the day of 
danger. In that fearful, bloody, breathless 
struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's hard 
task was to beat back five foes or die himself, 
of the five high officers who perished, four were 
Whigs. 

In speaking of this, I mean no odious com- 
parison between the lion-hearted Whigs and 
the Democrats who fought there. On other 
occasions, and among the lower officers and 
privates on that occasion, I doubt not the pro- 
portion was different. I wish to do justice to 
all. I think of all those brave men as Ameri- 
cans, in whose proud fame, as an American, I 
too have a share. Many of them, Whigs and 
Democrats, are my constituents and personal 
friends ; and I thank them, — more than thank 
them, — one and all, for the high imperishable 
honor they have conferred on our common 
State. 

But the distinction between the cause of the 
President in beginning the war, and the cause 
of the country after it was begun, is a distinc- 
tion which you cannot perceive. To you the 
President and the country seem to be all one. 
You are interested to see no distinction between 
them ; and I venture to suggest that probably 
your interest blinds you a little. We see the 
distinction, as we think, clearly enough ; and 
our friends who have fought in the war have 
5 



Abraham Lincoln 

no difficulty in seeing it also. What those who 
have fallen would say, were they alive and 
here, o£ course we can never know ; but with 
those who have returned there is no difficulty. 
Colonel Haskell and Major Gaines, members 
here, both fought in the war, and one of them 
underwent extraordinary perils and hardships ; 
still they, like all other Whigs here, vote, on 
the record, that the war was unnecessarily and 
unconstitutionally commenced by the Presi- 
dent. And even General Taylor himself, the 
noblest Roman of them all, has declared that 
as a citizen, and particularly as a soldier, it is 
sufficient for him to know that his country is at 
war with a foreign nation, to do all in his power 
to bring it to a speedy and honorable termina- 
tion by the most vigorous and energetic opera- 
tions, without inquiry about its justice, or any- 
thing else connected with it. 

Mr. Speaker, let our Democratic friends be 
comforted with the assurance that we are con- 
tent with our position, content with our com- 
pany, and content with our candidate ; and 
that although they, in their generous sympathy, 
think we ought to be miserable, we really are 
not, and that they may dismiss the great anx- 
iety they have on our account. 



Notes for a Law Lecture 

July I, 1850 

[These notes show Lincoln's power of straight- 
forward statement and his good sense. They 
are of additional interest as indicating his atti- 
tude toward professional success.] 

I AM not an accomplished lawyer. I find 
quite as much material for a lecture in those 
points wherein I have failed as in those wherein 
I have been moderately successful. The lead- 
ing rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every 
other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for 
to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never 
let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever 
piece of business you have in hand, before stop- 
ping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can 
then be done. When you bring a common-law 
suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write 
the declaration at once. If a law point be in- 
volved, examine the books, and note the au- 
thority you rely on upon the declaration itself, 
where you are sure to find it when wanted. 
The same of defenses and pleas. In business 
not likely to be litigated, — ordinary collection 
cases, foreclosures, partitions, and the like, — 
7 



Abraham Lincoln 

make all examinations of titles, and note them, 
and even draft orders and decrees in advance. 
Phis course has a triple advantage ; it avoids 
omissions and neglect, saves your labor when 
once done, performs the labor out of court when 
you have leisure, rather than in court when you 
have not. Extemporaneous speaking should 
be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's 
avenue to the public. However able and faith- 
ful he may be in other respects, people are slow 
to bring him business if he cannot make a 
speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error 
to young lawyers than relying too much on 
speech-making. If any one, upon his rare 
powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption 
from the drudgery of the law, his case is a fail- 
ure in advance. 

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neigh- 
bors to compromise whenever you can. Point 
out to them how the nominal winner is often a 
real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time. 
As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior op- 
portunity of being a good man. There will 
still be business enough. 

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can 
scarcely be found than one who does this. Who 
can be more nearly a fiend than he who habit- 
ually overhauls the register of deeds in search 
of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, 
and put money in his pocket? A moral tone 
ought to be infused into the profession which 
should drive such men out of it. 



Notes for a Law Lecture 

The matter of fees is important, far beyond 
the mere question of bread and butter involved. 
Properl}^ attended to. fuller justice is done to 
both lawyer and client. An exorbitant fee 
should never be claimed. As a general rule 
never take your whole fee in advance, nor any 
more than a small retainer. When fully paid 
beforehand, you are more than a common mor- 
tal if you can feel the same interest in the case, 
as if something was still in prospect for you, as 
well as for your client. And when you lack in- 
terest in the case the job will very likely lack 
skill and diligence in the performance. Settle 
the amount of fee and take a note in advance. 
Then you will feel that you are working for 
something, and you are sure to do your work 
faithfully and well. Never sell a fee note — at 
least not before the consideration service is per- 
formed. It leads to negligence and dishonesty 
— negligence by losing interest in the case, and 
dishonesty in refusing to refund when you have 
allowed the consideration to fail. 

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers 
are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because 
when we consider to what extent confidence 
and honors are reposed in and conferred upon 
lawyers by the people, it appears improbable 
that their impression of dishonesty is very dis- 
tinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, 
almost universal. Let no young man choosing 
the law for a calling for a moment yield to the 
popular belief — resolve to be honest at all 



Abraham Lincoln 

events ; and if in your own judgment you can- 
not be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest 
without being a lawyer. Choose some other 
occupation, rather than one in the choosing of 
which you do, in advance, consent to be a 
knave. 



lo 



Fragment on Slavery 

July I, 1854 

[From early manhood Lincoln's sympathies 
had been strongly enlisted on behalf of the 
slaves. The contrast between slave labor and 
free labor has never been stated more tersely 
and vividly than here. The sentence, ' ' Twenty- 
five years ago I was a hired laborer," should be 
noted.] 

Equality in society alike beats inequality, 
whether the latter be of the British aristocratic 
sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We know 
Southern men declare that their slaves are bet- 
ter off than hired laborers amongst us. How 
little they know whereof they speak I There is 
no permanent class of hired laborers amongst 
us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired la- 
borer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors 
on his own account to-day, and will hire others 
to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement- 
improvement in condition — is the order of things 
in a society of equals. As labor is the common 
burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift 
their share of the burden onto the shoulders of 
others is the great durable curse of the race. 



Abraham Lincoln 

Originally a curse for transgression upon the 
whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concen- 
trated on a part only, it becomes the double- 
refined curse of God upon his creatures. 

Free labor has the inspiration of hope ; pure 
slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon 
human exertion and happiness is wonderful. 
The slave-master himself has a conception of 
it, and hence the system of tasks among slaves. 
The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash 
to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, 
if you will task him to break a hundred, and 
promise him pay for all he does over, he will 
break you a hundred and fifty. You have sub- 
stituted hope for the rod. And yet perhaps it 
does not occur to you that to the extent of your 
gain in the case, you have given up the slave 
system and adopted the free system of labor. 



12 



The Dred Scott Decision and the Dec- 
laration of Independence 

June 26, 1S57 

[This is an extract from a speech dehvered 
in Springfield, 111. It was intended as a reply- 
to a speech of Stephen A. Douglas two weeks 
earlier upon the subject of slavery in the Terri- 
tories. Douglas was the author of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill, passed in 1854, which gave the' 
Territories the right to decide whether they 
would have slavery. The Dred Scott decision 
was published by the Supreme Court of the 
United States in 1857, and was ^ the effect that 
a slave or the descendant of . slave could not 
be a citizen of the United States or have any 
standing in the Federal courts. Lincoln con- 
trasts the spirit of this decision with that of the 
Declaration of Independence, with a skill and 
force that will be apparent to every reader. 
He repeated the substance of the argument 
over and over again in his joint debates with 
Douglas in the following year.] 

I HAVE said, in substance, that the Dred Scott 
decision was in part based on assumed histori- 
cal facts which were not really true, and I ought 
not to leave the subject without giving some 
reasons for saying this ; I therefore give an in- 
stance or two, which I think fully sustain me. 
Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion 
13 



Abraham Lincoln 

of the majority of the court, insists at great 
length that negroes were no part of the people 
who rftade, or for whom was made, the Declara- 
tion of Independence, or the Constitution of 
the United States. 

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissent- 
ing opinion, shows that in five of the then thir- 
teen States— to wit. New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North 
Carolina — free negroes were voters, and in pro- 
portion to their numbers had the same part in 
making the Constitution that the white people 
had. He shows this with so much particularity 
as to leave no doubt of its truth ; and as a sort 
of conlusion on that point, holds the following 
language : 

" The Constitution was ordained and estab- 
lished by the people of the United States, 
through the action, in each State, of those per- 
sons who were qualified by its laws to act there- 
on in behalf of themselves and all other citizens 
of the State. In some of the States, as w^e have 
seen, colored persons were among those quali- 
fied by law to act on the subject. These col- 
ored persons were not only included in the body 
of ' the people of the United States ' by whom 
the Constitution was ordained and established ; 
but in at least five of the States they had the 
power to act, and doubtless did act, by their 
suffrages, upon the question of its adoption." 

Again, Chief Justice Taney says : 

" It is difficult at this day to realize the state 
of public opinion, in relation to that unfortunate 
race, which prevailed in the civilized and en- 

14 



Dred Scott Decision 

lightened portions of the world at the time of 
the Declaration of Independence, and when the 
Constitution of the United States was framed 
and adopted." 

And again, after quoting from the Declara- 
tion, he says : 

" The general words above quoted would 
seem to include the whole human family, and 
if they were used in a similar instrument at this 
day, would be so understood." 

In these the Chief Justice does not directly 
assert but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the 
public estimate of the black man is more favor- 
able now than it was in the days of the Revo- 
lution. This assumption is a mistake. In some 
trifling particulars the condition of that race 
has been ameliorated ; but as a whole, in this 
country, the change between then and now is 
decidedly the other way ; and their ultimate 
destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in 
the last three or four years. In tv/o of the five 
States — New Jersey and North Carolina — that 
then gave the free negro the right of voting, 
the right has since been taken away, and in a 
third — New York — it has been greatly abridged ; 
while it has not been extended, so far as I know, 
to a single additional State, though the number 
of the States has more than doubled. In those 
days, as I understand, masters could, at their 
own pleasure, emancipate their slaves ; but 
since then such legal restraints have been made 
upon emancipation as to amount almost to pro- 
15 



Abraham Lincoln 

hibition. In those days legislatures held the 
unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their 
respective States, but now it is becoming quite 
fashionable for State constitutions to withhold 
that power from the legislatures. In those 
days, by common consent, the spread of the 
black man's bondage to the new countries was 
prohibited, but now Congress decides that it 
will not continue the prohibition, and the Su- 
preme Court decides that it could not if it would. 
In those days our Declaration of Independence 
was held sacred by all, and thought to include 
all ; but now, to aid in making the bondage of 
the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed 
and sneered at and construed, and hawked at 
and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their 
graves, they could not at all recognize it. All 
the powers of earth seem rapidly combining 
against him. Mammon is after him, ambition 
follows, philosophy follows, and the theology 
of the day is fast joining the cry. They have 
him in his prison-house ; they have searched 
his person, and left no prying instrument with 
him. One after another they have closed the 
heavy iron doors upon him ; and now they have 
him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hun- 
dred keys, which can never be unlocked with- 
out the concurrence of every key — the keys in 
the hands of a hundred different men, and they 
scattered to a hundred different and distant 
places ; and they stand musing as to what in- 
vention, in all the dominions of mind and mat- 
i6 



Dred Scott Decision 

ter, can be produced to make the impossibility 
of his escape more complete than it is. 

It is grossly incorrect to say or assume that 
the public estimate of the negro is more favor- 
able now than it was at the origin of the gov- 
ernment. 

Three years and a half ago. Judge Douglas 
brought forward his famous Nebraska bill. 
The country was at once in a blaze. He scorned 
all opposition, and carried it through Congress. 
Smce then he has seen himself superseded in a 
presidential nomination by one indorsing the 
general doctrine of his measure, but at the 
same time standing clear of the odium of its 
untimely agitation and its gross breach of na- 
tional faith ; and he has seen that successful 
rival constitutionally elected, not by the strength 
of friends, but by the division of adversaries, 
being in a popular minority of nearly four hun- 
dred thousand votes. He has seen his chief 
aids in his own State, Shields and Richardson, 
politically speaking, successively tried, con- 
victed, and executed for an offense not their 
own, but his. And now he sees his own case 
standing next on the docket for trial. 

There is a natural disgust in the minds of 
nearly all white people at the idea of an indis- 
criminate amalgamation of the white and black 
races ; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing 
his chief hope upon the chances of his being 
able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust 
* to himself. If he can, by much drumming and 
17 



Abraham Lincoln 

repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upoi. 
his adversaries, he thinks he can struggh 
through the storm. He therefore cHngs to thi: 
hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. H< 
makes an occasion for lugging it in from th(,- 
opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds 
the Republicans insisting that the Declaratioi 
of Independence includes all men, black a 
well as white, and forthwith he boldly denie; 
that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds t<! 
argue gravely that all who contend it does, dx 
so only because they want to vote, and eat, and 
sleep, and marry with negroes ! He will have 
it that they cannot be consistent else. Now ; 
protest against the counterfeit logic which con 
eludes that, because I do not want a blacl: 
woman for a slave I must necessarily want he; 
for a wife. I need not have her for either. 1 
can just leave her alone. In some respects she 
certainly is not my equal ; but in her natural 
right to eat the bread she earns with her own 
hands without asking leave of any one else, she 
is my equal, and the equal of all others. 

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the 
Dred Scott case, admits that the language of 
the Declaration is broad enough to include the 
whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas 
argue that the authors of that instrument did 
not intend to include negroes, by the fact that 
they did not at once actually place them on an 
equality with the whites. Now this grave argu- 
ment comes to just nothing at all, by the other 



Dred Scott Decision 

fact that they did not at once, or ever after- 
ward, actually place all white people on an 
equality with one another. And this is the 
staple argument of both the chief justice and 
the senator for doing this obvious violence to 
the plain, unmistakable language of the Decla- 
ration. 

I think the authors of that notable instrument 
I intended to include all men, but they did not 
intend to declare all men equal iji all respects. 
They did not mean to say all were equal in 
\ color, size, intellect, moral developments, or 
. social capacity. They defined with tolerable 
[ distinctness .in what respects they did consider 
all men created equal — equal with " certain in- 
alienable rights, among which are life, liberty, 
( and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, 
' and this they meant. They did not mean to 
I assert the obvious untruth that all were then 
I actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that 
they were about to confer it immediately upon 
them. In fact, they had no power to confer 
I such a boon. They meant simply to declare 
I the right, so that enforcement of it might fol- 
I low as fast as circumstances should permit. 

They meant to set up a standard maxim for 
free society, which should be familiar to all, 
and revered by all ; constantly looked to, con- 
stantly labored for, and even though never per- 
fectly attamed, constantly approximated, and 
thereby constantly spreading and deepening its 
influence and augmenting the happiness and 
19 



Abraham Lincoln 

value of life to all people of all colors every- 
where. The assertion that "all men are cre- 
ated equal" was of no practical use in effecting 
our separation from Great Britain ; and it was 
placed in the Declaration not for that, but for 
future use. Its authors meant it to be — as, 
thank God, it is now proving itself— a stum- 
bling-block to all those who in after- times might 
seek to turn a free people back into the hateful 
paths of despotism. They knew the proneness 
of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant 
when such should reappear in this fair land and 
commence their vocation, they should find left 
for them at least one hard nut to crack. 

I have now briefly expressed my view of the 
meaning and object of that part of the Declara- 
tion of Independence which declares that ' ' all 
men are created equal." 

Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the 
same subject, as I find it in the printed report 
of his late speech. Here it is : 

" No man can vindicate the character, mo- 
tives, and conduct of the signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, except upon the hypoth- 
esis that they referred to the white race alone, 
and not to the African, when they declared all 
men to have been created equal ; that they 
were speaking of British subjects on this conti- 
nent being equal to British subjects born and 
residing in Great Britain ; that they were en- 
titled to the same inalienable rights, and among 
them were enumerated life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. The Declaration was 
adopted for the purpose of justifying the colo- 
20 



Dred Scott Decision 

nists in the eyes of the civilized world in with- 
drawing their allegiance from the British crown, 
and dissolving their connection with the mother 
country." 

My good friends, read that carefully over 
some leisure hour, and ponder well upon it ; 
see what a mere wreck —mangled ruin — it 
makes of our once glorious Declaration. 

*' They were speaking of British subjects on 
this continent being equal to British subjects 
born and residing in Great Britain !" Why, 
according to this, not only negroes but white 
people outside of Great Britain and America 
were not spoken of in that instrument. The 
English, Irish, and Scotch, along with white 
Americans, were included, to be sure, but the 
French, Germans, and other white people of 
the world are all gone to pot along with the 
judge's inferior races ! 

I had thought the Declaration promised some- 
thing better than the condition of British sub- 
jects ; but no, it only meant ^at we should be 
equal to them in their own oppressed and un- 
equal condition. According to that, it gave no 
promise that, having kicked off the king and 
lords of Great Britain, we should not at once 
be saddled with a king and lords of our own. 

I had thought the Declaration contemplated 
the progressive improvement in the condition 
of all men everywhere ; but no, it merely " was 
adopted for the purpose of justifying the colo- 
nists in the eyes of the civilized world in with- 

21 



Abraham Lincoln 

drawing their allegiance from the British crown, 
and dissolving their connection with the mother 
country. ' ' Why, that object having been effect- 
ed some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of 
no practical use now — mere rubbish— old wad- 
ding left to rot on the battle-field after the vic- 
tory is won. 

I understand you are preparing to celebrate 
the "Fourth," to-morrow week. What for? 
The doings of that day had no reference to the 
present ; and quite half of you are not even de- 
scendants of those who were referred to at that 
day. But 1 suppose you will celebrate, and 
will even go so far as to read the Declaration. 
Suppose, after you read it once in the old-fash- 
ioned way, you read it once more with Judge 
Douglas's version. It will then run thus : 
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 
all British subjects who were on this continent 
eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all 
British subjects born and then residing in 
Great Britain." 

And now I appeal to all — to Democrats as 
well as others — are you really willing that the 
Declaration shall thus be frittered away ? — thus 
left no more, at most, than an interesting me- 
morial of the dead past ? — thus shorn of its 
vitality and practical value, and left without 
the germ or even the suggestion of the individ- 
ual rights of man in it ? 



Springfield Speech 

June i6, 1858 

Speech deUvered at Springfield, Illinois, at the 
close of the Republican State Convention by 
which Mr. Lincoln had been named as their 
candidate for United States Senator. 

[The opening paragraph of this speech was 
prepared with the most extreme care, and prob- 
ably did more to influence Lincoln's political 
future than anything he ever wTote. His best 
friends thought it impolitic to utter the senti- 
ment that the " government cannot endure per- 
manently half slave and half free." 

For the immediate purpose of that campaign 
they were right, for this paragraph, in the opin- 
ion of many good judges, was the cause of Lin- 
coln's defeat by Douglas. But the constant 
discussion of those sentences in the great series 
of joint debates with Douglas during the sum- 
mer and autumn brought Lincoln's views be- 
fore the whole country, and was an important 
element in his selection as the Republican can- 
didate for the Presidency in i860. The entire 
speech, read in the light of subsequent history, 
affords remarkable evidence not only of Lin- 
coln's shrewdness as a party leader, but of his 
political wisdom in the highest sense.] 

Mr. President and Gentlenien of the Con- 
ventio7i : If we could first know where we are, 
and whither we are tending, we could better 
23 



Abraham Lincoln 

judge what to do, and how to do it. We are 
now far into the fifth year since a poHcy was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident 
promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
Under the operation of that pohcy, that agita- 
tion has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease 
until a crisis shall have been, reached and 
passed. " A house divided against itself can- 
not stand." I believe this government cannot 
endure permanently half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I 
do not expect the house to fall —but I do expect 
it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing, or all the other. Either the oppo- 
nents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind shall 
rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction ; or its advocates will push it 
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all 
the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South. 

Have we no tendency to tlie latter condition ? 

Let any one who doubts carefully contem- 
plate that now almost complete legal combina- 
tion — piece of machiner)^ so to speak— com- 
pounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred 
Scott decision. Let him consider not only what 
work the machinery is adapted to do, and how 
well adapted ; but also let him study the his- 
tory of its construction, and trace, if he can, or 
rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of 
24 



Springfield Speech 

design and concert of action among its chief 
architects, from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded 
from more than half the States by State consti- 
tutions, and from most of the national territory 
by congressional prohibition. Four days later 
commenced the struggle which ended in repeal- 
ing that congressional prohibition. This 
opened all the national territory to slavery, and 
was the first point gained. 

But, so far. Congress only had acted ; and 
an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, 
was indispensable to save the point already 
gained and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but 
had been provided for, as well as might be, in 
the notable argument of " squatter sover- 
eignty," otherwise called " sacred right of self- 
government," which latter phrase, though ex- 
pressive of the only rightful basis of any gov- 
ernment, was so perverted in this attempted 
use of it as to amount to just this : That if any 
one man choose to enslave another, no third 
man shall be allowed to object. That argument 
was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, 
in the language which follows : " It being the 
true intent and meaning of this act not to legis- 
late slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 
exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States," 
25 



Abraham Lincoln 

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in 
favor of " squatter sovereignty" and " sacred 
right of self-government." " Biit," said oppo- 
sition members, " let us amend the bill so as to 
expressly declare that the people of the Terri- 
tory may exclude slavery." "Not we,'' said 
the friends of the measure ; and down they 
voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through 
Congress, a law case involving the question of 
a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner hav- 
ing voluntarily taken him first into a free State 
and then into a Territory covered by the con- 
gressional prohibition, and held him as a slave 
for a long time in each, was passing, through 
the United States Circuit Court for the District 
of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and law- 
suit were brought to a decision in the same 
month of May, 1S54. The negro's name was 
Dred Scott, which name now designates the de- 
cision finally made in the case. Before the 
then next presidential election, the law case 
came to and was argued in the Supreme Court 
of the United States ; but the decision of it 
was deferred until after the election. Still, be- 
fore the election, Senator Trumbull, on the 
floor of the Senate, requested the leading ad- 
vocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion 
whether the people of a Territory can constitu- 
tionally exclude slavery from their limits ; and 
the latter answered : ' ' That is a question for 
the Supreme Court." 

26 



Springfield Speech 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elect- 
ed, and the indorsement, such as it was, se- 
cured. That was the second point gained. 
The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear 
popular majority b}^ nearly four hundred thou- 
sand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over- 
whelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The out- 
going President, in his last annual message, as 
impressively as possible echoed back upon the 
people the weight and authority of the indorse- 
ment. The Supreme Court met again ; did not 
announce their decision, but ordered a reargu- 
ment. The presidential inauguration came, 
and still no decision of the court ; but the in- 
coming President in his inaugural address fer- 
vently exhorted the people to abide by the forth- 
coming decision, whatever it might be. Then, 
in a few days, came the decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds 
an early occasion to make a speech at this cap- 
ital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and 
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. 
The new President, too, seizes the early occa- 
sion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly 
construe that decision, and to express his aston- 
ishment that any different view had ever been 
entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the 
President and the author of the Nebraska bill, 
on the mere question of fact, . whether the 
Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any 
just sense, made by the people of Kansas ; and 
27 



Abraham Lincoln 

in that quarrel the latter declares that all he 
wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he 
cares not whether slavery be voted down or 
voted up. I do not understand his declaration 
that he cares not whether slavery be voted 
down or voted up to be intended by him otlier 
than as an a^Dt definition of the jjolicy he would 
impress upon the public mind — the principle 
for which he declares he has suffered so much, 
and is ready to suffer to the end. And well 
may he cling to that principle. If he has any 
parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That 
principle is the only shred left of his original 
Nebraska doctrine Under the Dred Scott de- 
cision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of 
existence, tumbled down like temporary scaf- 
folding, — like the mold at the foundry, served 
through one blast and fell back into loose sand, 
— helped to carry an election, and then was 
kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle 
with the Republicans against the Lecompton 
constitution involves nothing of the original 
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made 
on a point — the right of a people to make their 
own constitution — upon which he and the Re- 
publicans have never differed. 

The sevefal points of the Dred Scott decision, 
in connection with Senator Douglas's " care 
not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery 
in its present state of advancement. This was 
the third point gained. The working points of 
that machinery are : 

28 



Springfield Speech 

(i) That no negro slave, imported as such 
from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, 
can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense 
of that term as used in the Constitution of the 
United States. This point is made in order to 
deprive the negro in every possible event of the 
benefit of that provision of the United States 
Constitution which declares that "the citizens 
of each State shall be entitled to all the priv- 
ileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." 

(2) That, " subject to the Constitution of the 
United States," neither Congress nor a terri- 
torial legislature can exclude slavery from any 
United States Territory. This point is made 
in order that individual men may fill up the 
Territories with slaves, without danger of los- 
ing them as property, and thus enhance the 
chances of permanency to the institution 
through all the future. 

(3) That whether the holding a negro in ac- 
tual slavery in a free State makes him free as 
against the holder, the United States courts 
will not decide, but will leave to be decided by 
the courts of any slave State the negro may be 
forced into by the master. This point is made 
not to be pressed immediately, but, if acquiesced 
in for a while and apparently indorsed by the 
people at an election, then to sustain the logi- 
cal conclusion that what Dred Scott's master 
might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free 
State of Illinois, every other master may law- 

29 



Abraham Lincoln 

fully do with any other one or one thousand 
slaves in Illinois or in any other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in 
hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is 
left of it, is to educate and mold public opin- 
ion, at least Northern public opinion, not co 
care whether slavery is voted down or voted 
up. This shows exactly where we now are, 
and partially, also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, 
to go back and run the mind over the string of 
historical facts already stated. Several things 
will now appear less dark and m3^sterious than 
they did when they were transpiring. The 
people were to be left " perfectly free," " sub- 
ject only to the Constitution." What the Con- 
stitution had to do with it outsiders could not 
then see. Plainly enough now, it was an ex- 
actly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to 
afterward come in, and declare the perfect free- 
dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. 
Why was the amendment expressly declaring 
the right of the people voted down ? Plainly 
enough now, the adoption of it would have 
spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. 
Why was the court decision held up ? Why 
even a senator's individual opinion withheld 
till after the presidential election? Plainly 
enough now, the speaking out then would have 
damaged the " perfectly free" argument upon 
which the election was to be carried. Why the 
outgoing President's felicitation on the indorse- 
30 



Springfield Speech 

ment ? Why the delay of a reargument ? 
Why the incoming President's advance exhor- 
tation in favor of the decision ? These things 
look like the cautious patting and petting of a 
spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, 
when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a 
fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of 
the decision by the Presiden t and others ? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these ex- 
act adaptations are the result of preconcert. 
But when we see a lot of framed timbers, differ- 
ent portions of which we know have been got- 
ten out at different times and places and by 
different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, 
and James, for instance, — and we see these tim- 
bers joined together, and see they exactly make 
the frame of a house or a mill, all tlie tenons 
and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths 
and proportions of the different pieces exactly 
adapted to their respective places, and not a 
piece too many or too few, not omitting even 
scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we 
see the place in the frame exactly fitted and 
prepared yet to bring such piece in — in such a 
case we find it impossible not to believe that 
Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all 
understood one another from the beginning, 
and all worked upon a common plan or draft 
drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Ne- 
braska bill, the people of a State as well as Ter- 
ritory were to be left " perfectly free," '' sub- 
31 



Abraham Lincoln 

ject only to the Constitution." Why mention 
a State ? They were legislating for Territories, 
and not for or about States. Certainly the peo- 
ple of a State are and ought to be subject to 
the Constitution of the United States ; but why 
is mention of this lugged into this merely terri- 
torial law ? Why are the people of a Territory 
and the people of a State therein lumped to- 
gether, and their relation to the Constitution 
therein treated as being precisely the same ? 
While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice 
Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate 
opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly 
declare that the Constitution of the United 
States neither permits Congress nor a terri- 
torial legislature to exclude slavery from any 
United States Territory, they all omit to de- 
clare whether or not the same Constitution per- 
mits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude 
it. Posbi; ''.y, this is a mere omission ; but who 
can be quice sure, if McLean or Curtis had 
sought to get into the opinion a declaration of 
unlimited power in the people of a State to ex- 
clude slavery from their limits, just as Chase 
and Mace sought to get such declaration, in 
behalf of the people of a Territory, into the 
Nebraska bill — I ask, who can be quite sure 
that it would not have been voted down in the 
one case as it had been in the other ? The 
nearest approach to the point of declaring the 
power of a State over slavery is made by Judge 
Nelson. He approaches it more than once, 
32 



Springfield Speech 

using the precise idea, and almost the language 
too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion his 
exact language is : " Except in cases where 
the power is restrained by the Constitution of 
the United States, the law of the State is su- 
preme over the subject of slavery within its 
jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the 
States is so restrained by the United States 
Constitution is left an open question, precisely 
as the same question as to the restraint on the 
power of the Territories was left open in the 
Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and 
we have another nice little niche, which we 
may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme 
Court decision declaring that the Constitution 
of the United States does not permit a State to 
exclude slavery from its limits. And this may 
especially be expected if the doctrine of care 
not whether slavery be voted down or voted 
up' ' shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently 
to give promise that such a decision can be 
maintained when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks 
of being alike lawful in all the States. Wel- 
come, or unwelcome, such decision is probably 
coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the 
power of the present political dynasty shall be 
met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleas- 
antly dreaming that the people of Missouri are 
on the verge of making their State free, and 
we shall awake to the reality instead that the 
Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. 
33 



Abraham Lincoln 

To meet and overthrow the power of that 
dynasty is the work now before all those who 
would prevent that consummation. That is 
what we have to do. How can we best do it ? 

There are those who denounce us openly to 
their own friends, and yet whisper us softly 
that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument 
there is with which to effect that object. They 
wish us to infer all from the fact that he now 
has a little quarrel with the present head of the 
dynasty ; and that he has regularly voted with 
us on a single point upon which he and we have 
never differed. They remind us that he is a 
great man, and that the largest of us are very 
small ones. Let this be granted. But " a liv- 
ing dog is better than a dead lion." Judge 
Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at 
least a caged and toothless one. How can he 
oppose the advances of slavery ? He don't care 
anything about it. His avowed mission is im- 
pressing the "public heart" to care nothing 
about it. A leading Douglas Democratic news- 
paper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be 
needed to resist the revival of the African 
slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to 
revive that trade is approaching ? He has not 
said so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, 
how can he resist it ? For years he has labored 
to prove it a sacred right of white men to take 
negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he 
possibly show that it is less a sacred right to 
buy them where they can be bought cheapest ? 
34 



Springfield Speech 

And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper 
in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in 
his power to reduce the whole question of 
slavery to one of a mere right of property ; and 
as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave- 
trade ? How can he refuse that trade in that 
"property" shall be "perfectly free," unless 
he does it as a protection to the home produc- 
tion ? And as the home producers will probably 
not ask the protection, he will be wholly with- 
out a ground of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man 
may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yes- 
terday—that he may rightfully change when he 
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that rea- 
son, run ahead, and infer that he will make any 
particular change of which he, himself, has 
given no intimation ? Can we safely base our 
action upon any such vague inference ? Now, 
as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
Douglas's position, question his motives, or do 
aught that can be personally offensive to him. 
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come to- 
gether on principle so that our great cause may 
have assistance from his great ability, I hope to 
have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But 
clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pre- 
tend to be — he does not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and 
conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those 
whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the 
work, who do care for the result. Two years 



Abraham Lincoln 

ago the Republicans of the nation mustered 
over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We 
did this under the single impulse of resistance 
to a common danger, with every external cir- 
cumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, 
and even hostile elements, we gathered from 
the four winds, and formed and fought the bat- 
tle through, under the constant hot fire of a dis- 
ciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did 
we brave all then to falter now ? — now, when 
that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and 
belligerent ? The result is not doubtful. We 
shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not 
fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes 
delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure 
to come. 



3^> 



Address at Cooper Institute 

February 27, i860 

[This was Lincoln's first appearance before 
an Eastern audience. The speech cost him a 
great deal of labor, and was most heartily re- 
ceived. — -See Morse' s " Abrakani Lincoln," I,, 
153-156.] 

Afr. President and Fellow-citizens of New 
York : The facts with which I shall deal this 
evening are mainly old and familiar ; nor is 
there anything new in the general use I shall 
make of them. If there shall be any novelty, 
it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, 
and the inferences and observations following 
that presentation. In his speech last autumn 
at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New 
York Times, Senator Douglas said : 

" Our fathers, when they framed the govern- 
ment under which we live, understood this 
question just as well, and even better, than we 
do now." 

I f ally indorse this, and I adopt it as a text 
for this discourse. I so adopt it because it fur- 
nishes a precise and an agreed starting-point 
for a discussion between Republicans and that 
wing of the Democracy headed by Senator 
37 



Abraham Lincoln 

Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry : What 
was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned ? 

What is the frame of government under which 
we live? The answer must be, " The Constitu- 
tion of the United States. ' ' That Constitution 
consists of the original, framed in 1787, and 
under which the present government first went 
into operation, and twelve subsequently framed 
amendments, the first ten of which were framed 
in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Con- 
stitution ? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who 
signed the original instrument may be fairly 
called our fathers who framed that part of the 
present government. It is almost exactly true 
to say they framed it, and it is altogether true 
to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. 
Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and 
accessible to quite all, need not now be re- 
peated. 

I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, 
as being " our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live." What is the ques- 
tion which, according to the text, those fathers 
understood " just as well, and even better, than 
we do now" ? 

It is this : Does the proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or anything in the Con- 
stitution, forbid our Federal Government to 
■control as to slavery in our Federal Territories ? 
38 



Address at Cooper Institute 

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirma- 
tive, and Republicans the negative. This 
affirmation and denial form an issue ; and this 
issue — this question— is precisely what the text 
declares our fathers understood ' ' better than 
we." Let us now inquire whether the " thirty- 
nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this 
question ; and if they did, how they acted upon 
it — how they expressed that better understand- 
ing. In 1784, three years before the Constitu- 
tion, the United States then owning the North- 
western Territory, and no other, the Congress 
of the Confederation had before them the ques- 
tion of prohibiting slavery in that Territory ; 
and four of the "thirty-nine" who afterward 
framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 
and voted on that question. Of these, Roger 
Sherman. Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh William- 
son voted for the prohibition, thus showing 
that, in their understanding, no line dividing 
local from Federal authority, nor anything else, 
properly forbade the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in Federal territory. The 
other of the four, James McHenry, voted against 
the prohibition, showing that for some cause 
he thought it improper to vote for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but 
while the convention was in session framing it, 
and while the Northwestern Territory still was 
the only Territory owned by the United States, 
the same question of prohibiting slavery in the 
Territory again came before the Congress of 
39 



Abraham Lincoln 

the Confederation ; and two more of the 
"thirty-nine" who afterward signed the Con- 
stitution were in that Congress, and voted on the 
question. They were Wilham Blount and Wil- 
Ham Few ; and they both voted for the pro- 
hibition—thus showing that in their under- 
standing no hne dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything else, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in Federal territory. This time the prohibition 
became a law, being part of what is now well 
known as the ordinance of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in 
the Territories seems not to have been directly 
before the convention which framed the orig- 
inal Constitution ; and hence it is not recorded 
that the "thirty-nine," or any of them, while 
engaged on that instrument, expressed any 
opinion on that precise question. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under 
the Constitution, an act was passed to enforce 
the ordinance of '87, including the prohibition 
of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The 
bill for this act was reported by one of the 
" thirty-nine" — Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a 
member of the House of Representatives from 
Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages 
without a word of opposition, and finally passed 
both branches without ayes and nays, which is 
equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this 
Congress there were sixteen of the thiyty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution. 
40 



Address at Cooper Institute 

They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, 
Wm. S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Mor- 
ris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham 
Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George 
Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce 
Butler, Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no 
line dividing local from Federal authority, nor 
anything in the Constitution, properly forbade 
Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal ter- 
ritory ; else both their fidelity to correct princi- 
ple, and their oath to support the Constitution, 
would have constrained them to oppose the 
prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the 
"thirty-nine," was then President of the 
United States, and as such approved and signed 
the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, 
and thus showing that, in his understanding, 
no line dividing local from Federal authority, 
nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the orig- 
inal Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the 
'Federal Government the country now consti- 
tuting the State of Tennessee ; and a few years 
later Georgia ceded that which now constitutes 
the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In 
both deeds of cession it was made a condition 
by the ceding States that the Federal Govern- 
ment should not prohibit slavery in the ceded 
41 



Abraham Lincoln 

country. Besides this, slavery was then ac- 
tually in the ceded country. Under these cir- 
cumstances, Congress, on taking charge of 
these countries, did not absolutely prohibit 
slavery within them. But they did interfere 
with it — take control of it — even there, to a cer- 
tain extent. In 1798 Congress organized the 
Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organi- 
zation they prohibited the bringing of slaves 
into the Territory from any place without the 
United States, by fine, and giving freedom to 
slaves so brought. This act passed both 
branches of Congress without yeas and nays. 
In that Congress were three of the "thirty- 
nine" who framed the original Constitution. 
They were John Langdon, George Read, and 
Abraham Baldwin. They all probably voted 
for it. Certainly they would have placed their 
opposition to it upon record if, in their under- 
standing, any line dividing local from Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution, prop- 
erly forbade the Federal Government to control 
as to slavery in Federal territory. 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased 
the Louisiana country. Our former territorial 
acquisitions came from certain of our own 
States ; but this Louisiana country was ac- 
quired from a foreign nation. In 1804 Con- 
gress gave a territorial organization to that part 
of it which now constitutes the State of Louisi- 
ana. New Orleans, lying within that part, 
was an old and comparatively large city. 
42 



Address at Cooper Institute 

There were other considerable towns and settle- 
ments, and slavery was extensively and thor- 
oughly intermingled with the people. Congress 
did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery ; 
but they did interfere with it — take control of 
it — in a more marked and extensive way than 
they did in the case of Mississippi. The sub- 
stance of the provision therein made in relation 
to slaves was : 

I St. That no slave should be imported into 
the Territory from foreign parts. 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it 
who had been imported into the United States 
since the first day of May, 1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, 
except by the owner, and for his own use as a 
settler ; the penalty in all the cases being a fine 
upon the violator of the law, and freedom to 
the slave. 

This act also was passed without ayes or 
nays. In the Congress which passed it there 
were two of the " thirty-nine." They were 
Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton. As 
stated in the case of Mississippi, it is probable 
they both voted for it. They would not have 
allowed it to pass without recording their op- 
position to it if, in their understanding, it vio- 
lated either the line properly dividing local from 
Federal authority, or any provision of the Con- 
stitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri 
question. Many votes were taken, by yeas and 
43 



Abraham Lincoln 

nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the 
various phases of the general question. Two 
of the " thirty-nine" — Rufus King and Charles 
Pinckney — were members of that Congress. 
Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition 
and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinck- 
ney as steadily voted against slavery prohibition 
and against all compromises. By this, Mr. 
King showed that, in his understanding, no 
line dividing local from Federal authority, nor 
anything in the Constitution, was violated by 
Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal terri- 
tory ; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed 
that, in his understanding, there was some 
sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition 
in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts 
of the ' * thirty-nine,* ' or of any of them, upon the 
direct issue, which I have been able to discover. . 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as 
being four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 
1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 
1819-20, there would be thirty of them. But 
this would be counting John Langdon, Roger 
Sherman, "William Few, Rufus King, and 
George Read each twice, and Abraham Bald- 
win three times. The true number of those of 
the " thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have 
acted upon the question which, by the text, 
they understood better than we, is twenty-three, 
leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon 
it in any way. 

44 



Address at Cooper Institute 

Here, then, we have twenty- three out of our 
thirty-nine fathers " who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live," who have, upon 
their official responsibility and their corporal 
oaths, acted upon the very question which the 
text affirms they " understood just as well, and 
even better, than we do now ;" and twenty- 
one of them — a clear majority of the whole 
" thirty-nine"— so acting upon it as to make 
them guilty of gross political impropriety and 
wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any 
proper division between local and Federal au- 
thorit}^ or anything in the Constitution they 
had made themselves, and sworn to support, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus the 
twenty-one acted ; and, as actions speak louder 
than words, so actions under such responsibility 
speak still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against con- 
gressional prohibition of slavery in the Federal 
Territories, m the instances in which they acted 
upon the question. But for what reasons they 
so voted is not known. They may have done 
so because they thought a proper division of 
local from Federal authority, or some provision 
or principle of the Constitution, stood in the 
way ; or they may, without any such question, 
have voted against the prohibition on what ap- 
peared to them to be sufficient grounds of ex- 
pediency. No one who has sworn to support 
the Constitution can conscientiously vote for 
45 



Abraham Lincoln 

what he understands to be an unconstitutional 
measure, however expedient he may think it ; 
but one may and ought to vote against a meas- 
ure which he deems constitutional if, at the 
same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, there- 
fore, would be unsafe to set down even the two 
who voted against the prohibition as having 
done so because, in their understanding, any 
proper division of local from Federal authorit3^ 
or anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the " thirty-nine," 
so far as I have discovered, have left no record 
of their understanding upon the direct question 
of Federal control of slavery in the Federal 
Territories. But there is much reason to be- 
lieve that their understanding upon that ques- 
tion would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been 
manifested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the 
text, I have purposely omitted whatever under- 
standing may have been manifested by any 
person, however distinguished, other than the 
thirty-nine fathers who framed the original 
Constitution ; and, for the same reason, I have 
also omitted whatever understanding may have 
been manifested by any of the "thirty-nine" 
even on any other phase of the general question 
of slavery. If we should look into their acts 
and declarations on those other phases, as the 
46 



Address at Cooper Institute 

foreign slave-trade, and the morality and policy 
of slavery generally, it would appear to us that 
on the direct question of Federal control of 
slavery in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if 
they had acted at all, would probably have acted 
just as the twenty-three did. Among that six- 
teen were several of the most noted anti-slavery 
men of those times— as Dr. Franklin, Alexan- 
der Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris — while 
there was not one now known to have been 
otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of 
South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty- 
nine fathers who framed the original Constitu- 
tion, twenty-one — a clear majority of the whole 
— certainly understood that no proper division 
of local from Federal authority, nor any part of 
the Constitution, forbade the Federal Govern- 
ment to control slavery in the Federal Terri- 
tories ; while all the rest had probably the same 
understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the 
understanding of our fathers who framed the 
original Constitution ; and the text affirms that 
they understood the question " better than we. " 

But, so far, I have been considering the un- 
derstanding of the question manifested by the 
framers of the original Constitution. In and 
by the original instrument, a mode was pro- 
vided for amending it ; and, as I have already 
stated, the present frame of " the government 
under which we live" consists of that original, 
and twelve amendatory articles framed and 
47 



Abraham Lincoln 

adopted since. Those who now insist that Fed- 
eral control of slavery in Federal Territories 
violates the Constitution, point us to the pro- 
visions which they suppose it thus violates ; 
and, as I understand, they all fix upon pro- 
visions in these amendatory articles, and not in 
the original instrument. The Supreme Court, 
in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon 
the fifth amendment, which provides that no 
person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or 
property without due process of law ;" while 
Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents 
plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, 
providing that " the powers not delegated to 
the United States by the Constitution" " are 
reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people " 

Now it so happens that these amendments 
were framed by the first Congress which sat 
under the Constitution^ — the identical Congress 
which passed the act, already mentioned, en- 
forcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 
western Territory. Not only was it the same 
Congress, but they were the identical, same in- 
dividual men who, at the same session, and at 
the same time wnthin the session, had under 
consideration, and in progress toward matu- 
rity, these constitutional amendments, and this 
act prohibiting slavery m all the territory the 
nation then owned. The constitutional amend- 
ments were introduced before, and passed after, 
the act enforcing the ordinance of '87 ; so that, 
48 



Address at Cooper Institute 

during the whole pendency of the act to enforce 
the ordinance, the constitutional amendments 
were also pending. 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, 
including sixteen of the framers of the original 
Constitution, as before stated, were pre-emi- 
nently our fathers who framed that part of 
" the government under which we live" which 
is now claimed as forbidding the Federal Gov- 
ernment to control slavery in the Federal Ter- 
ritories. 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at 
this day to affirm that the two things which 
that Congress deliberately framed, and carried 
to maturity at the same time, are absolutely in- 
consistent with each other ? And does not such 
affirmation become impudently absurd when 
coupled with the other affirmation, from the 
same mouth, that those who did the two things 
alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether 
they really were inconsistent better than we — 
better than he who affirms that they are incon- 
sistent ? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 
framers of the original Constitution, and the 
seventy-six members of the Congress which 
framed the amendments thereto, taken to- 
gether, do certainly include those who may be 
fairly called ' ' our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we live, ' ' And so assum- 
ing, I defy any man to show that any one of 
them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in 
49 



Abraham Lincoln 

his understanding, any proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or any part of the Con- 
stitution, forbade the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. 
I go a step further. 1 defy any one to show 
that any living man in the whole world ever 
did, prior to the beginning of the present cen- 
tury (and I might almost say prior to the be- 
ginning of the last half of the present century), 
declare that, in his understanding, any proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories. To those who now so declare 
I give not only ' ' our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live," but with 
them all other living men within the century in 
which it was framed, among whom to search, 
and they shall not be able to find the evidence 
of a single man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against 
being misunderstood. I do not mean to say 
we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever 
our fathers did. To do so would be to discard 
all the lights of current experience — to reject 
all progress, all improvement. What I do say 
is that if we would supplant the opinions and 
policy of our fathers in any case, we should do 
so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument 
so clear, that even their great authority, fairly 
considered and weighed, cannot stand ; and 
most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves 
50 



Address at Cooper Institute 

declare they understood the question better 
than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that 
a proper division of local from Federal author- 
ity, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
the Federal Territories, he is right to say so, 
and to enforce his position by all truthful evi- 
dence and fair argument which he can. But 
he has no right to mislead others, who have less 
access to history, and less leisure to study it, 
into the false belief that * * our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live" 
were of the same opinion— thus substituting 
falsehood and deception for truthful evidence 
and fair argument. If any man at this day sin- 
cerely believes ' ' our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live" used and 
applied principles, in other cases, which ought 
to have led them to understand that a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or 
some part of the Constitution, forbids the Fed- 
eral Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But 
he should, at the same time, brave the responsi- 
bility of declaring that, in his opinion, he un- 
derstands their {)rinciples better than they did 
themselves ; and especially should he not shirk 
that responsibility by asserting that they " un- 
derstood the question just as well, and even 
better, than we do now." 

But enough ! Let all who believe that " our 
51 



Abraham Lincoln 

fathers who framed the government under 
which we live understood this question just as 
well, and even better, than we do now," speak 
as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. 
This is all Republicans ask — all Republicans 
desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers 
marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil 
not to be extended, but to be tolerated and pro- 
tected only because of and so far as its actual 
presence among us makes that toleration and 
protection a necessity. Let all the guaranties 
those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but 
fully and fairly, maintained. For this Repub- 
licans contend, and with this, so far as I know 
or believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen — as I suppose 
they will not — I would address a few words to 
the Southern people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves 
a reasonable and a just people ; and I consider 
that in the general qualities of reason and jus- 
tice you are not inferior to any other people. 
Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you 
do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the 
best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant 
a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing 
like it to " Black Republicans." In all your 
contentions with one another, each of you deems 
an unconditional condemnation of " Black Re- 
publicanism" as the first thing to be attended 
to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to 
be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to 
52 



Address at Cooper Institute 

speak — among you to be admitted or permitted 
to speak at all. Now can you or not be pre- 
vailed upon to pause and to consider whether 
this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves ? 
Bring forward your charges and specifications, 
and then be patient long enough to hear us 
deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue ; and the burden of proof is 
upon you. You produce your proof ; and what 
is it ? Why, that our party has no existence in 
your section — gets no votes in your section. 
The fact is substantially true ; but does it prove 
the issue ? If it does, then in case we should, 
without change of principle, begin to get votes 
in your section, we should thereby cease to be 
sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion ; 
and yet, are you willing to abide by it ? If you 
are, you will probably soon find that we have 
ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in 
your section this very year. You will then be- 
gin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that 
your proof does not touch the issue. The fact 
that we get no votes in your section is a fact of 
your making, and not of ours. And if there be 
fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, 
and remains so until you show that we repel 
you by some wrong principle or practice. If 
we do repel you by any wrong principle or prac- 
tice, the fault is ours ; but this brings you to 
where you ought to have started — to a discus- 
sion of the right or wrong of our principle. If 
53 



Abraham Lincoln 

our principle, put in practice, would wrong your 
section for the benefit of ours, or for any other 
object, then our principle, and we with it, are 
sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced 
as such. Meet us, then, on the question of 
whether our principle, put in practice, would 
wrong your section ; and so meet us as if it 
were possible that something may be said on 
our side. Do you accept the challenge ? No ! 
Then you really believe that the principle which 
' ' our fathers who framed the government un- 
der which we live" thought so clearly right as 
to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, 
upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly 
wrong as to demand your condemnation with- 
out a moment's consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the 
warning against sectional parties given by 
Washington in his Farewell Address. Less 
than eight years before Washington gave that 
warning, he had, as President of the United 
States, approved and signed an act of Congress 
enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory, which act embodied 
the policy of the government upon that subject 
up to and at the very moment he penned that 
warning ; anl about one year after he penned 
it, he wrote Lafayette that he considered that 
prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the 
same connection his hope that we should at 
some time have a confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that section- 
54 



Address at Cooper Institute 

alism has since arisen upon this same subject, 
is that warning a weapon in your hands against 
us, or in our hands against you ? Could Wash- 
ington himself speak, would he cast the blame 
of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his 
policy, or upon you, who repudiate it ? We re- 
spect ^that warning of Washington, and we 
commend it to you, together with his example 
pointing to the right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently 
conservative — while we are revolutionary, de- 
structive, or something of the sort. What is 
conservatism ? Is it not adherence to the old 
and tried, against the new and untried ? We 
stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on 
the point in coptroversy which was adopted by 
" our fathers who framed the government un- 
der which we live ;" while you with one accord 
reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, 
and insist upon substituting something new. 
True, you disagree among yourselves as to 
what that substitute shall be. Vou are divided 
on new propositions and plans, but you are 
unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old 
policy of the fathers. Some of you are for re- 
viving the foreign slave-trade ; some for a con- 
gressional slave code for the Territories ; some 
for Congress forbidding the Territories to pro- 
hibit slavery within their limits ; some for main- 
taining slavery in the Territories through the 
judiciary ; some for the " gur-reat pur-rinciple" 
that "if one man would enslave another, no 
55 



Abraham Lincoln 

third man should object," fantastically called 
"popular sovereignty;" but never a man 
among you is in favor of Federal prohibition of 
slavery in Federal Territories, according to the 
practice of ' ' our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we live." Not one of all 
your various plans can show a precedent or an 
advocate in the century within which our gov- 
ernment originated. Consider, then, whether 
your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and 
your charge of destructiveness against us, are 
based on the most clear and stable founda- 
tions. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery 
question more prominent than it formerly was. 
We deny it. We admit that it is more promi- 
nent, but we deny that we made it so. It was 
not we, but you, who discarded the old policy 
of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, 
your innovation ; and thence comes the greater 
prominence of the question. Would you have 
that question reduced to its former proportions ? 
Go back to that old policy. What has been 
will be again, under the same conditions. If 
you would have the peace of the old times, re- 
adopt the precepts and policy of the old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections 
among your slaves. We deny it ; and what is 
your proof ? Harper's Ferry ! John Brown ! ! 
John Brown was no Republican ; and you have 
failed to implicate a single Republican in his 
Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of 
56 



Address at Cooper Institute 

our party is guilty in that matter, you know it, 
or you do not know it. If you do know it, you 
are inexcusable for not designating the man 
and proving the fact. If you do not know it, 
you are inexcusable for asserting it, and espe- 
cially for persisting in the assertion after you 
have tried and failed to make the proof. You 
need not be told that persisting in a charge 
which one does not know to be true, is simply 
malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican de- 
signedly aided or encouraged the Harper's 
Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines 
and declarations necessarily lead to such re- 
sults. We do not believe it. We know we 
hold no doctrine, and make no declaration, 
which were not held to and made by "our 
fathers who framed the government under 
which we live." You never dealt fairly by us 
in relation to this affair. When it occurred, 
some important State elections were near at 
hand, and you were in evident glee with the 
belief that, by charging the blame upon us, 
you could get an advantage of us in those elec- 
tions. The elections came, and your expecta- 
tions were not quite fulfilled. Every Republi- 
can man knew that, as to himself at least, your 
charge was a slander, and he was not much 
inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. 
Republican doctrines and declarations are ac- 
companied with a continual protest against any 
interference whatever with your slaves, or with 
57 



Abraham Lincoln 

you about your slaves. Surely, this does not 
encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in 
common with "our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live," declare our 
belief that slavery is wrong ; but the slaves do 
not hear us declare even this. For anything 
we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know 
there is a Republican party. I believe they 
would not, in fact, generally know it but for 
your misrepresentations of us in their hearing. 
In your political contests among yourselves, 
each faction charges the other with sympathy 
with Black Republicanism ; and then, to give 
point to the charge, defines Black Republican- 
ism to simply be insurrection, blood, and thun- 
der among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now 
than they were before the Republican party 
was organized. What induced the Southamp- 
ton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in 
which at least three times as many lives were 
lost as at Harper's Ferry ? You can scarcely 
stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion 
that Southampton was " got up by Black Re- 
publicanism." In the present state of things 
in the United States, I do not think a general, 
or even a very extensive, slave insurrection is 
possible. The indispensable concert of action 
cannot be attained. The slaves have no means 
of rapid communication ; nor can incendiary 
freemen, black or white, supply it. The explo- 
sive materials are everywhere in parcels ; but 
58 



Address at Cooper Institute 

there neither are, nor can be suppUed, the in- 
dispensable connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the 
affection of slaves for their masters and mis- 
tresses ; and a part of it, at least, is true. A 
plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised 
and communicated to twenty individuals before 
some one of them, to save the life of a favorite 
master or mistress, would divulge it. This is 
the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was 
not an exception to it, but a case occurring un- 
der peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder 
plot of British history, though not connected 
with slaves, was more in point. In that case, 
only about twenty were admitted to the secret ; 
and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a 
friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by 
consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional 
poisonings from the kitchen, and open or 
stealthy assassinations in the field, and local re- 
volts extending to a score or so, will continue 
to occur as the natural results of slavery ; but 
no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, 
can happen in this country for a long time 
Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for such 
an event, will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered 
many years ago, "It is still in our power to 
direct the process of emancipation and deporta- 
tion peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as 
that the evil will wear off insensibly ; and their 
places be, pari passit, filled up by free white 
59 



Abraham Lincoln 

laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force 
itself on, human nature must shudder at the 
prospect held up. ' ' 

Mr, Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, 
that the power of emancipation is in the Fed- 
eral Government. He spoke of Virginia ; and, 
as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the 
slaveholding States only. The Federal Govern- 
ment, however, as we insist, has the power of 
restraining the extension of the institution— the 
power to insure that a slave insurrection shall 
never occur on any American soil which is now 
free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not 
a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by 
white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in 
which the slaves refused to participate. In 
fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all 
their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could 
not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, cor- 
responds with the many attempts, related in 
history, at the assassination of kings and em- 
perors. An enthusiast broods over the oppres- 
sion of a people till he fancies himself com- 
missioned by Heaven to liberate them. He 
ventures the attempt, which ends in little else 
than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on 
Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at 
Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, pre- 
cisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame 
on old England in the one case, and on New 
60 



Address at Cooper Institute 

England in the other, does not disprove the 
sameness of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you 
could, by the use of John Brown, Helper's 
Book, and the like, break up the Republican 
organization ? Human action can be modified 
to some extent, but human nature cannot be 
changed. There is a judgment and a feeling 
against slavery in this nation, which cast at 
least a million and a half of votes. You cannot 
destroy that judgment and feeling — that senti- 
ment — by breaking up the political organization 
which rallies around it. You can scarcely scat- 
ter and disperse an army which has been formed 
into order in the face of your heaviest fire ; 
but if you could, how much would you gain by 
forcing the sentiment which created it out of 
the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some 
other channel ? What would that other chan- 
nel probably be ? Would the number of John 
Browns be lessened or enlarged by the opera- 
tion ? 

But you will break up the Union rather than 
submit to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it 
would be palliated, if not fully justified, were 
we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to 
deprive you of some right plainly written down 
in the Constitution. But we are proposing no 
such thing. 

When you make these declarations you have 
6i 



Abraham Lincoln 

a specific and well-imderstood allusion to an 
assumed constitutional right of yours to take 
slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold 
them there as property. But no such right is 
specially written in the Constitution. That in- 
strument is literally silent about any such right. 
We, on the contrary, deny that such a right 
has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that 
you will destroy the government, unless you be 
allowed to construe and force the Constitution 
as you please, on all points in dispute between 
you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Per- 
haps you will say the Supreme Court has de- 
cided the disputed constitutional question in 
your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the 
lawyer's distinction between dictum and de- 
cision, the court has decided the question for 
you in a sort of way. The court has substan- 
tially said, it is your constitutional right to take 
slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold 
them there as property. When I say the de- 
cision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was 
made in a divided court, by a bare majority of 
the judges, and they not quite agreeing with 
one another in the reasons for making it ; that 
it is so made as that its avowed supporters dis- 
agree with one another about its meaning, and 
that it was mainly based upon a mistaken state- 
ment of fact— the statement in the opinion that 
62 



Address at Cooper Institute 

" the right of property in a slave is distinctly 
and expressly affirmed in the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show 
that the right of property in a slave is not " dis- 
tinctly and expressly affirmed " in it. Bear in 
mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial 
opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in 
the Constitution ; but they pledge their verac- 
ity that it is " distinctly and expressly" affirmed 
there — "distinctly," that is, not mingled with 
anything else— " expressly," that is, in words 
meaning just that, without the aid of any infer- 
ence, and susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opin- 
ion that such right is affirmed in the instrument 
by implication, it would be open to others to 
show that neither the word " slave" nor 
"slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, 
nor the word " property" even, in any connec- 
tion with language alluding to the thing slave, 
or slavery ; and that wherever in that instru- 
ment the slave is alluded to, he is called a 
"person;" and wherever his master's legal 
right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken 
of as " service or labor which may be due" — as 
a debt payable in service or labor. Also it 
would be open to show, by contemporaneous 
history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and 
slavery, instead of speaking of them, was em- 
ployed on purpose to exclude from the Consti- 
tution the idea that there could be property in 
man. 

63 



Abraham Lincoln 

To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall 
be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable 
to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken 
statement, and reconsider the conclusion based 
upon it ? 

And then it is to be remembered that " our 
fathers who framed the government under 
which we live" — the men who made the Con- 
stitution — decided this same constitutional ques- 
tion in our favor long ago : decided it without 
division among themselves when making the 
decision ; without division among themselves 
about the meaning of it after it was made, and, 
so far as any evidence is left, without basing it 
upon any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really 
feel yourselves justified to break up this gov- 
ernment unless such a court decision as yours 
is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive 
and final rule of political action ? But you will 
not abide the election of a Republican presi- 
dent ! In that supposed event, you say, you 
will destroy the Union ; and then, you say, the 
great crime of having destroyed it will be upon 
us ! That is cool. A highwayman holds a 
pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, 
"Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and 
then you will be a murderer !" 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of 
me — my money — was my own ; and I had a 
clear rigi^t to keep it ; but it was no more my 
64 



Address at Cooper Institute 

own than my vote is my own ; and the threat 
of death to me, to extort my money, and the 
threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my 
vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle. 

A few words now to Republicans. It is ex- 
ceedingly desirable that all parts of this great 
Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony 
one with another. Let us Republicans do our 
part to have it so. Even though much pro- 
voked, let us do nothing through passion and 
ill temper. Even though the Southern people 
will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly 
consider their demands, and yield to them if, 
in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly 
can. Judging by all they say and do, and by 
the subject and nature of their controversy with 
us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy 
them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be un- 
conditionally surrendered to them ? We know 
they will not. In all their present complaints 
against us, the Territories are scarcely men- 
tioned. Invasions and insurrections are the 
rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, 
we have nothing to do with invasions and in- 
surrections ? We know it will not. We so 
know, because we know we never had anything 
to do with invasions and insurrections ; and 
yet this total abstaming does not exempt us 
from the charge and the denunciation. 

The question recurs. What will satisfy them ? 
Simply this : we must not only let them alone, 
65 



Abraham Lincoln 

but we must somehow convince them that we 
do let them alone. This, we know by experi- 
ence, is no easy task. We have been so trying 
to convince them from the very beginning of 
our organization, but with no success. In all 
our platforms and speeches we have constantly 
protested our purpose to let them alone ; but 
this has had no tendency to convince them. 
Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact 
that they have never detected a man of us in 
any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means 
all failing, what will convince them ? This, 
and this only : cease to call slavery wrong, and 
join them in calling it right. And this must be 
done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in 
words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must 
place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator 
Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted 
and enforced, suppressing all declarations that 
slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in 
presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must ar- 
rest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy 
pleasure. We must pull down our free-State 
constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be 
disinfected from all taint of opposition to sla- 
very, before they will cease to believe that all 
their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case 

precisely in this way. Most of them would 

probably say to us, " Let us alone ; do nothing 

to us, and say what you please about slavery." 

66 



Address at Cooper Institute 

But we do let them alone — have never disturbed 
them — so that, after all, it is what we say which 
dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse 
us of doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms 
demanded the overthrow of our free-State con- 
stitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the 
wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis 
than do all other sayings against it ; and when 
all these other sayings shall have been silenced, 
the overthrow of these constitutions will be de- 
manded, and nothing be left to resist the de- 
mand. It is nothing to the contrary that they 
do not demand the whole of this just now. De- 
manding what they do, and for the reason they 
do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of 
this consummation. Holding, as they do, that 
slavery is morally right and socially elevating, 
they cannot cease to demand a full national 
recognition of it as a legal right and a social 
blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any 
ground save our conviction that slavery is 
wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, 
laws, and constitutions against it are them- 
selves wrong, and should be silenced and swept 
away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to 
its nationality — its universality ; if it is wrong, 
they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its 
enlargement. All they ask we could readily 
grant, if we thought slavery right ; all we ask 
they could as readily grant, if they thought it 
67 



Abraham Lincoln 

wrong. Their thinking it right and otir think- 
ing it wrong is the precise fact upon which de- 
pends the whole controversy. Thinking it 
right, as they do, they are not to blame for de- 
siring its full recognition as being right ; but 
thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to 
them ? Can we cast our votes with their view, 
and against our own ? In view of our moral, 
social, and political responsibilities, can we do 
this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet 
afford to let it alone where it is, because that 
much is due to the necessity arising from its 
actual presence in the nation ; but can we, 
while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the national Territories, and to 
overrun us herein these free States? If our 
sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by 
our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be 
diverted by none of those sophistical contri- 
vances wherewith we are so industriously plied 
and belabored — contrivances such as groping 
for some middle ground between the right and 
the wrong : vain as the search for a man who 
should be neither a living man nor a dead 
man ; such as a policy of " don't care" on a 
question about which all true men do care ; 
such as Union appeals beseeching true Union 
men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the 
divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but 
the righteous to repentance ; such as invoca- 
tions to Washington, imploring men to unsay 
68 



Address at Cooper Institute 

what Washington said and undo what Wash- 
ington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by- 
false accusations against us, nor frightened 
from it by menaces of destruction to the gov- 
ernment, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let 
us have faith that right makes might, and in 
that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty 
as we understand it. 



69 



Farewell at Springfield 

February ii, iS6i 

[These words, to which subsequent events 
have given an added note of solemnity, were 
spoken to a vast audience of Lincoln's fellow- 
citizens upon the rainy February day when he 
left Springfield for Washington to assume the 
duties of the Presidency.] 

My Frze?ids : No one, not in my situation, 
can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this 
parting. To this place, and the kindness of 
these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
lived a quarter of a century, and have passed 
from a young to an old man. Here my chil- 
dren have been born, and one is buried. I 
now leave, not knowing when or whether ever 
I may return, with a task before me greater 
than that which rested upon Washington. 
Without the assistance of that Divine Being 
who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. 
With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting 
in Him who can go with me, and remain with 
you, and be everywhere for good, let us confi- 
dently hope that all will yet be well. To His 
care commending you, as I hope in your prayers 
you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate 
farewell. 



I 



Speech in Independence Hall, 
Philadelphia 

February 22, 1861 

[During the journey to Washington Lincoln 
made many brief addresses. The following, 
spoken in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 
upon Washington's Birthday, is one of the most 
felicitous, and the time and place of its delivery 
give it additional interest.] 

Mr. Cuyle}" : I am filled with deep emotion 
at finding myself standing in this place, where 
were collected together the wisdom, the patri- 
otism, the devotion to principle, from which 
sprang the institutions imder which we live. 
You have kindly suggested to me that in my 
hands is the task of restoring peace to our dis- 
tracted country. I can say in return, sir, that 
all the political sentiments I entertain have 
been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw 
them, from the sentiments which originated in 
and were given to the world from this hall. 1 
have never had a feeling, politically, that did 
not spring from the sentiments embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. I have often 
pondered over the dangers which were incurred 
by the men who assembled here and framed 
71 



Abraham Lincoln 

and adopted that Declaration. I have pon- 
dered over the toils that were endured by the 
officers and soldiers of the army who achieved 
that independence. I have often inquired of 
myself what great principle or idea it was that 
kept this Confederacy so long together. It was 
not the mere matter of separation of the col- 
onies from the motherland, but that sentiment 
in the Declaration of Independence which gave 
liberty not alone to the people of this country, 
but hope to all the world, for all future time. 
It was that which gave promise that in due 
time the weights would be lifted from the shoul- 
ders of all men, and that all should have an 
equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied 
in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my 
friends, can this country be saved on that 
basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of 
the happiest men in the world if I can help to 
save it. If it cannot be saved upon that prin- 
ciple, it will be truly awful. But if this country 
cannot be saved without giving up that princi- 
ple, I was about to say I would rather be assas- 
sinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, 
in my view of the present aspect of affairs, 
there is no need of bloodshed and war. There 
is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such 
a course ; and I may say in advance that there 
will be no bloodshed unless it is forced upon 
the government. The government will not use 
force, unless force is used against it. 

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared 
72 



Speech in Independence Hall 

speech. I did not expect to be called on to say 
a word when I came here. I supposed I was 
merely to do something toward raising a flag. 
I may, therefore, have said something indis- 
creet. [Cries of " No, no."] But I have said 
nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, 
if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by. 



73 



First Inaugural Address. 

March 4, 1861. 

[" Mr. Lincoln was simply introduced by- 
Senator Baker, of Oregon, and delivered his 
inaugural address. His voice had great carry- 
ing capacity, and the vast crowd heard with 
ease a speech of which every sentence was 
fraught with an importance and scrutinized 
with an anxiety far beyond that of any other 
speech ever delivered in the United States. . . . 
The inaugural address was simple, earnest, and 
direct, unincumbered by that rhetorical orna- 
mentation which the American people have al- 
Avays admired as the highest form of eloquence. 
Those Northerners who had expected magnilo- 
quent periods and exaggerated outbursts of 
patriotism were disappointed, and as they lis- 
tened in vain for the scream of the eagle, many 
grumbled at the absence of what they conceived 
to he force. Yet the general feeling was of sat- 
isfaction, which grew as the address was more 
thoroughly studied." — Morse's ''Abraham 
Lmcoln.''\ 

Fellow-citizens of the United States : In 
compliance with a custom as old as the govern 
ment itself, I appear before you to address you 
briefly, and to take in your presence the oath 
prescribed by the Constitution of the United 
States to be taken by the President " before 
he enters on the execution of his office." 
74 



First Inaugural Address 

I do not consider it necessary at present for 
me to discuss those matters of admmistration 
about which there is no special anxiety or ex- 
citement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the peo- 
ple of the Southern States that by the accession 
of a Republican administration their property 
and their peace and personal security are to be 
endangered. There has never been any rea- 
sonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, 
the most ample evidence to the contrary has all 
the while existed and been open to their inspec- 
tion. It is found in nearly all the published 
speeches of him who now addresses you. I do 
but quote from one of those speeches when I 
declare that *' I have no purpose, directly or in- 
directly, to interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe 
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no 
inclination to do so." Those who nominated 
and elected me did so with full knowledge that 
I had made this and many similar declarations, 
and had never recanted them. And, more than 
this, they placed in the platform for my accept- 
ance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution which I now 
read : 

" Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate 
of the rights of the States, and especially the 
right of each State to order and control its own 
domestic institutions according to its own judg- 
ment exclusively, is essential to that balance of 
power on which the perfection and endurance 

75 



Abraham Lincoln 

of our political fabric depend, and we denounce 
the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil 
of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." 

I now reiterate these sentiments ; and, in 
doing so, I only press upon the public attention 
the most conclusive evidence of which the case 
is susceptible, that the property, peace, and 
security of no section are to be in any wise en- 
dangered by the now incoming administration. 
I add, too, that all the protection which, consis- 
tently with the Constitution and the laws, can 
be given, will be cheerfully given to all the 
States when lawfully demanded, for whatever 
cause — as cheerfully to one section as to an- 
other. 

There is much controversy about the deliver- 
ing up of fugitives from service or labor. The 
clause I now read is as plainly written in the 
Constitution as any other of its provisions : 

' ' No person held to service or labor in one 
State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an- 
other, shall in consequence of any law or regu- 
lation therein be discharged from such service 
or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be 
due. ' ' 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision 
was intended by those who made it for the re- 
claiming of what we call fugitive slaves ; and 
the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All 
members of Congress swear their support to the 
whole Constitution — to this provision as much 
76 



First Inaugural Address 

as to any other. To the proposition, then, that 
slaves whose cases come within the terms of 
this clause " shall be delivered up," their oaths 
are unanimous. Now, if they would make the 
effort in good temper, could they not with 
nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law 
by means of which to keep good that unanimous 
oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether 
this clause should be enforced by national or 
by State authority ; but surely that difference 
is not a very material one. If the slave is to 
be surrendered, it can be of but little conse- 
quence to him or to others by which authority 
it is done. And should any one in any case be 
content that his oath shall go unkept on a 
merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it 
shall be kept ? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought 
not all the safeguards of liberty known in civ- 
ilized and humane jurisprudence to be intro- 
duced, so that a free man be not, in any case, 
surrendered as a slave ? And might it not be 
well at the same time to provide by law for the 
enforcement of that clause in the Constitution 
which guarantees that "the citizen of each 
State shall be entitled to all privileges and im- 
munities of citizens in the several States" ? 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental 

reservations, and with no purpose to construe 

the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical 

rules. And while I do not choose now to specify 

77 



Abraham Lincoln 

particular acts of Congress as proper to be en- 
forced, I do suggest that it will be much safer 
for all, both in official and private stations, to 
conform to and abide by all those acts which 
stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
trusting to find impunity in having them held 
to be unconstitutional. 

It is seventy -two years since the first inaugu- 
ration of a President under our National Con- 
stitution. During that period fifteen different 
and greatly distinguished citizens have, in suc- 
cession, administered the executive branch of 
the government. They have conducted it 
through many perils, and generally with great 
success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, 
I now enter upon the same task for the brief 
constitutional term of four years under great 
and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the 
Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is 
now formidably attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law 
and of the Constitution, the Union of these 
States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if 
not expressed, in the fundamental law of all 
national governments. It is safe to assert that 
no government proper ever had a provision in 
its organic law for its own termination. Con- 
tinue to execute all the express provisions of 
our National Constitution, and the Union will 
endure forever — it being impossible to destroy 
it except by some action not provided for in the 
instrument itself. 

78 



First Inaugural Address 

Again, if the United States be not a govern- 
ment proper, but an association of States in the 
nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, 
be peaceably unmade by less than all the par- 
ties who made it ? One party to a contract may 
violate it — break it, so to speak ; but does it not 
require all to lawfully rescind it ? 

Descending from these general principles, 
we find the proposition that, in legal contem- 
plation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the 
history of the Union itself. The Union is much 
older than the Constitution. It was formed, in 
fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It 
was matured and continued by the Declaration 
of Independence in 1776. It was further ma- 
tured, and the faith of all the then thirteen 
States expressly plighted and engaged that it 
should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confed- 
eration in 1778. And, finally, in 17S7 one of 
the declared objects for ordaining and estab- 
lishing the Constitution was " to form a more 
perfect Union." 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or 
by a part only of the States be lawfully possi- 
ble, the Union is less perfect than before the 
Constitution, having lost the vital element of 
perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon 
its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the 
Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that 
effect are legally void ; and that acts of vio- 
lence, within any State or States, against the 
79 



Abraham Lincoln 

authority of the United States, are insurrection- 
ary or revolutionary, according to circum- 
stances. 

I therefoi'e consider that, in view of the Con- 
stitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken ; 
and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, 
as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon 
me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully 
executed in all the States. Doing this I deem 
to be only a simple duty on my part ; and I 
shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my 
rightful masters, the American people, shall 
withhold the requisite means, or in some au- 
thoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust 
this will not be regarded as a menace, but only 
as the declared purpose of the Union that it 
will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed 
or violence ; and there shall be none, unless it 
be forced upon the national authority. The 
power confided to me will be used to hold, oc- 
cupy, and possess the property and places be- 
longing to the government, and to collect the 
duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be 
necessary for these objects, there will be no in- 
vasion, no using of force against or among the 
people anywhere. Where hostility to the 
United States, in any interior locality, shall be 
so great and universal as to prevent competent 
resident citizens from holding the Federal 
offices, there will be no attempt to force obnox- 
ious strangers among the people for that object, 
80 



First Inaugural Address 

While the strict legal right may exist in the 
government to enforce the exercise of these 
offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritat- 
ing, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I 
deem it better to forego for the time the uses of 
such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to 
be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far 
as possible, the people everywhere shall have 
that sense of perfect security which is most 
favorable to calm thought and reflection. The 
course here indicated will be followed unless 
current events and experience shall show a 
modification or change to be proper, and in 
every case and exigency my best discretion will 
be exercised according to circumstances actually 
existing, and with a view and a hope of a peace- 
ful solution of the national troubles and the res- 
toration of fraternal sympathies and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or an- 
other who seek to destroy the Union at all 
events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I 
will neither affirm nor deny ; but if there be 
such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union may 
I not speak ? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as 
the destruction of our national fabric, with all 
its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would 
it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do 
it ? Will you hazard so desperate a step while 
there is any possibility that any portion of the 



Abraham Lincoln 

ills you fly from have no real existence ? Will 
you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater 
than all the real ones you fly from — will you 
risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all 
constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it 
true, then, that any right, plainly written in 
the Constitution, has been denied ? I think 
not. Happily the human mind is so constituted 
that no party can reach to the audacity of doing 
this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in 
which a plainly written provision of the Con- 
stitution has ever been denied. If by the mere 
force of numbers a majority should deprive a 
minority of any clearly written constitutional 
right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify 
revolution — certainly would if such a right were 
a vital one. But such is not our case. All the 
vital rights of minorities and of individuals are 
so plainly assured to them by affirmations and 
negations, guarantees and prohibitions, in the 
Constitution, that controversies never arise con- 
cerning them. But no organic law can ever be 
framed with a provision specifically applicable 
to every question which may occur in practical 
administration. No foresight can anticipate, 
nor any document of reasonable length contain, 
express provisions for all possible questions. 
Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by 
national or by State authority ? The Constitu- 
tion does not expressly say. May Congress 
prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Con- 
82 



First Inaugural Address 

stitution does not expressly say. Mnst Con- 
gress protect slavery in the Territories ? The 
Constitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our 
constitutional controversies, and we divide upon 
them into majorities and minorities. If the 
minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, 
or the government must cease. There is no 
other alternative ; for continuing the govern- 
ment is acquiescence on one side or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather 
than acquiesce, they make a precedent which 
in turn will divide and ruin them ; for a minor- 
ity of their own will secede from them when- 
ever a majority refuses to be controlled by such 
minority. For instance, why may not any por- 
tion of a new confederacy a year or two hence 
arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions 
of the present Union now claim to secede from 
it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are 
now being educated to the exact temper of 
doing this. 

Is there such perfect identity of interests 
among the States to compose a new Union, as 
to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed 
secession ? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the 
essence of anarchy. A majority held in re- 
straint by constitutional checks and limitations, 
and always changing easily with deliberate 
changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is 
the only true sovereign of a free people. Who- 
83 



Abraham Lincoln 

ever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy 
or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible ; the 
rule of a minority, as a permanent arrange- 
ment, is wholly inadmissible ; so that, rejecting 
the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in 
some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, 
that constitutional questions are to be decided 
by the Supreme Court ; nor do 1 deny that such 
decisions must be binding, in any case, upon 
the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, 
while they are also entitled to very high respect 
and consideration in all parallel cases by all 
other departments of the government. And 
while it is obviously possible that such decision 
may be erroneous in any given case, still the 
evil effect following it, being limited to that 
particular case, with the chance that it may be 
overruled and never become a precedent for 
other cases, can better be borne than could the 
evils of a different practice. At the same time, 
the candid citizen must confess that if the pol- 
icy of the government, upon vital questions 
affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably 
fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the 
instant they are made, in ordinary litigation 
between parties in personal actions, the people 
will have ceased to be their own rulers, having 
to that extent practically resigned their govern- 
ment into the hands of that eminent tribunal. 
Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 
court or the judges. It is a duty from which 
84 



First Inaugural Address 

they may not shrink to decide cases properly 
brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs 
if others seek to turn their decisions to political 
purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery 
is right, and ought to be extended, while the 
other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be 
extended. This is the only substantial dispute. 
The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, 
and the law for the suppression of the foreign 
slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, 
as any law can ever be in a community where 
the moral sense of the people imperfectly sup- 
ports the law itself. The great body of the 
people abide by the dry legal obligation in both 
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I 
think, cannot be perfectly cured ; and it would 
be worse in both cases after the separation of 
the sections than before. The foreign slave- 
trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be 
ultimately revived, without restriction, in one 
section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially 
surrendered, would not be surrendered at all 
by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. 
We cannot remove our respective sections from 
each other, nor build an impassable wall be- 
tween them. A husband and wife may be 
divorced, and go out of the presence and be- 
yond the reach of each other ; but the different 
parts of our country cannot do this. They can- 
not but remain face to face, and intercourse, 
8S 



Abraham Lincoln 

either amicable or hostile, must continue be- 
tween them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satis- 
factory after separation than before ? Can 
aliens make treaties easier than friends can 
make laws ? Can treaties be more faithfully- 
enforced between aliens than laws can among 
friends ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot 
fight always ; and when, after much loss on 
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease 
fighting, the identical old questions as to terms 
of intercourse are again upon you. 

This countr3^ with its institutions, belongs 
to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they 
shall grow weary of the existing government, 
they can exercise their constitutional right of 
amending it, or their revolutionary right to dis- 
member or overthrow it, I cannot be ignorant 
of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citi- 
zens are desirous of having the National Con- 
stitution amended. While I make no recom- 
mendation of amendments, I fully recognize the 
rightful authority of the people over the whole 
subject, to be exercised in either of the modes 
prescribed in the instrument itself ; and I 
should, under existing circumstances, favor 
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being 
afforded the people to act upon it. I will ven- 
ture to add that to me the convention mode 
seems preferable, in that it allows amendments 
to originate with the people themselves, instead 
of only permitting them to take or reject propo- 
86 



First Inaugural Address 

sitions originated by others not especially 
chosen for the purpose, and which might not 
be precisely such as they would wish to either 
accept or refuse. I understand a proposed 
amendment to the Constitution — which amend- 
ment, however, I have not seen — has passed 
Congress, to the effect that the Federal Govern- 
ment shall never interfere with the domestic in- 
stitutions of the States, including that of per- 
sons held to service. To avoid misconstruction 
of what I have said, I depart from my purpose 
not to speak of particular amendments so far as 
to say that, holding such a provision to now be 
implied constitutional law, I have no objection 
to its being made express and irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority 
from the people, and they have conferred none 
upon him to fix terms for the separation of the 
States. The people themselves can do this also 
if they choose ; but the executive, as such, has 
nothing to do with it. His duty is to adminis- 
ter the present government, as it came to his 
hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, 
to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence 
in the ultimate justice of the people ? Is there 
any better or equal hope in the world ? In our 
present differences is either party without faith 
of being in the right ? If the Almighty Ruler 
of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, 
be on your side of the North, or on yours of the 
South, that truth and that justice will surely 
87 



Abraham Lincoln 

prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal 
of the American people. 

By the frame of the government under which 
we live, this same people have wisely given 
their public servants but little power for mis- 
chief ; and have, with equal wisdom, provided 
for the return of that little to their own hands 
at very short intervals. While the people re- 
tain their virtue and vigilance, no administra- 
tion, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, 
can very seriously injure the government in the 
short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly 
and well upon this whole subject. Nothing 
valuable can be lost by taking time. If there 
be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to 
a step which you would never take deliberately, 
that object will be frustrated by taking time ; 
but no good object can be frustrated by it. 
Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have 
the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the 
sensitive point, the laws of your own framing 
under it ; while the new administration will 
have no immediate power, if it would, to change 
either. If it were admitted that you who are 
dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, 
there still is no single good reason for precipi- 
tate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christian- 
ity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never 
yet forsaken this favored land, are still com- 
petent to adjust in the best way all our present 
difficulty. 



First Inaugural Address 

In your hands, my dissatisfied, fellow-country- 
men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue 
of civil war. The government will not assail 
you. You can have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath 
registered in heaven to destroy the government, 
ii while I shall have the most solemn one to " pre- 
!^«' serve, protect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, hut 

friends. We must not be enemies. Though 

passion may have strained, it must not break 

our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 

\ memory, stretching from every battle-field and 

j patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 

\ stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 

f J chorus of the Union when again touched, as 

I' \ surely they will be, by the better angels of our 

I nature. 



89 



Emancipation Proclamation 

January i, 1863 

By the President of the United States o 
America : ' 

A Procla7natio7i 

Whereas^ on the twenty-second da}'' of Sep 
tember, in the year of our Lord one thousant 
eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamatio: 
was issued by the President of the Unite 
States, containing, among other things, the fo 
lowing, to wit : 

'* That on the first day of January, in th 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundre 
and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves with! 
any State, or designated part of a State, tl 1 
people whereof shall then be in rebellion again 
the United States, shall be then, thenceforwar' 
and forever free ; and the Executive Gover 
ment of the United States, including the mi 
tary and naval authority thereof, will recogniz 1 
and maintain the freedom of such person . n J ' 
will do no act or acts to repress such persjns, 
or any of them, in any efforts they may make 
for their actual freedom. 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of 



r 



' Emancipation Proclamation 

January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate 
the States and parts of States, if any, in which 
the people thereof respectively shall then be in 
ebellion against the United States ; and the 
act that any State, or the people thereof, shall 
)n that day be in good faith represented in the 
[Congress of the United States by members 
•hosen thereto at elections wherein a majority 
)f the qualified voters of such State shall have 
)articipated, shall in the absence of strong 
;ountervailing testimony be deemed conclusive 
!vidence that such State and the people thereof 
ire not then in rebellion against the United 
states." 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, Presi- 
Lent of the United States, by virtue of the 
)ower in me vested as commander-in-chief of 
he army and navy of the United States, in 
ime of actual armed rebellion against the au- 
hority and government of the United States, 
nd as a fit and necessary war measure for sup- 
1 lessing said rebellion, do, on this first day of 
anuary, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
ight hundred and sixty-three, and in accord- 
nce with my purpose so to do, publicly pro- 
laimed for the full period of loo days from the 
ay first above mentioned, order and designate 

^ the States and j^arts of States wherein the 
people thereof, respectively, are this day in re- 
bellion against the United States, the follow- 
ing, to wit : 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the par- 



Abraham Lincoln ' 

islies of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, 
St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, 
Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, 
St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of 
New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, 
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and 
Virginia (except the forty-eight counties desig- 
nated as West Virginia, and also the counties 
of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth 
City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, includ- 
ing the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and 
which excepted parts are for the present left 
precisely as if this proclamation were not 
issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the pur- 
pose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all 
persons held as slaves within said designated 
States and parts of States are, and hencefor- 
ward shall be, free ; and that the Executive 
Government of the United States, including 
the military and naval authorities thereof, will 
recognize and maintain the freedom of said 
persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so de- 
clared to be free to abstain from all violence, 
unless in necessary self-defence ; and I recom- 
mend to them that, in all cases when allowed, 
they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known that 
such persons of suitable condition will be re- 
ceived into the armed service of the United 
States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and 
92 



Emancipation Proclamation 

other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in 
said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be 
an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution 
upon military necessity, I invoke the consider- 
ate judgment of mankind and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my 

hand, and caused the seal of the United States 

to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this 

first day of January, in the year of our 

, Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
Fl s 1 
'- ' '-^ sixty-three, and of the independence 

of the United States of America the 

eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

By the President : William H. Seward, Sec- 

retary of State. 



93 



Gettysburg Address 

November ig, 1863 

[The national military cemetery at Gettys- 
burg, Pa., was dedicated with solemn ceremo- 
nies on November 19, 1863, as a memorial of 
the three days' battle fought in the previous 
July, which proved to be the turning-point of 
the Civil War. The formal oration of the day 
was pronounced by Edward Everett, but the 
President was asked to add a word. His biog- 
rapher, Mr, J. G. Nicolay, has given an inter- 
esting account of the preparation of the address. 
{Century Magazme^ Vol. XLVII.) It was de- 
livered without any effort at oratorical effect ; 
but its perfection of feeling and of phrase was 
instantly and universally recognized. To have 
composed the Gettysburg address is proof 
enough, were there no other, of Lincoln's place 
among the masters of English speech. His let- 
ter to Edward Everett acknowledging the lat- 
ter's praise, and complimenting Everett in turn, 
is included in this volume of selections.] 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propo- 
sition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, 
testing whether that nation, or any nation so 
94 



Gettysburg Address 

conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field 
as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — 
we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this 
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say 
here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedi- 
cated here to the unfinished work which they 
who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated 
to the great task remaining before us— that 
from these honored dead we take increased de- 
votion to that cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion ; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom ; and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
ple, shall not perish from the earth. 



95 



Speech to i66th Ohio Regiment 

August 22, 1864 

Soldiers : I suppose you are going home to 
see your families and friends. For the services 
you have done in this great struggle in which 
we are all engaged, I present you sincere thanks 
for myself and the country. 

I almost always feel inclined, when I happen 
to say anything to soldiers, to impress upon 
them, in a few brief remarks, the importance 
of success in this contest. It is not merely for 
to-day, but for all time to come, that we should 
perpetuate for our children's children that great 
and free government which we have enjoyed 
all our lives. I beg you to remember this, not 
merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen, 
temporarily, to occupy this White House, I 
am a living witness that any one of your chil- 
dren may look to come here as my father's child 
has. It is in order that each one of you may 
have, through this free government which we 
have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance 
for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence ; 
that you may all have equal privileges in the 
race of life, with all its desirable human aspira- 
96 



Speech to i66th Ohio Regiment 

tions. It is for this the struggle should be 
maintained, that we may not lose our birthright 
— not only for one, but for two or three years. 
The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such 
an inestimable jewel. 



97 



Response to Serenade 

November lo, 1864 

[This little speech was called forth by the 
news of Lincoln's re-election as President.] 

It has long been a grave question whether 
any government, not too strong for the liber- 
ties of its people, can be strong enough to main- 
tain its existence in great emergencies. On 
this point the present rebellion brought our re- 
public to a severe test, and a presidential elec- 
tion occurring in regular course during the 
rebellion, added not a little to the strain. 

If the loyal people united were put to the 
utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must 
they not fail when divided and partially para- 
lyzed by a political war among themselves ? 
But the election was a necessity. We cannot 
have free government without elections ; and 
if the rebellion could force us to forego or post- 
pone a national election, it might fairly claim 
to have already conquered and ruined us. The 
strife of the election is but human nature prac- 
tically applied to the facts of the case. What 
has occurred in this case must ever recur in 
similar cases. Human nature will not change. 
In any future great national trial, compared 
98 



Response to Serenade 

with the men of this, we shall have as weak 
and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and 
as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents 
of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and 
none of them as wrongs to be revenged. But 
the election, along with its incidental and un- 
desirable strife, has done good too. It has 
demonstrated that a people's government can 
sustain a national election in the midst of a 
great civil war. Until now, it has not been 
known to the world that this was a possibility. 
It shows, also, how sound and how strong we 
still are. It shows that, even among candidates 
of the same party, he who is most devoted to 
the Union and most opposed to treason can re- 
ceive most of the people's votes. It shows, 
also, to the extent yet known, that we have 
more men now than we had when the war be- 
gan. Gold is good in its place, but living, 
brave, patriotic men are better than gold. 

But the rebellion continues, and now that the 
election is over, may not all having a common 
interest reunite in a common effort to save our 
common country ? For my own part, I have 
striven and shall strive to avoid placing any 
obstacle in the way. So long as I have been 
here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any 
man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to 
the high compliment of a re-election, and duly 
grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having 
directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, 
a§ I think, for their own good, it adds nothing 
Q9 



Abraham Lincoln 

to my satisfaction that any other man may be 
disappointed or pained by the result. 

May I ask those who have not differed with 
me to join with me in this same spirit toward 
those who have? And now let me close by 
asking three hearty cheers for our brave sol- 
diers and seamen and their gallant and skilful 
commanders. 



100 



Reply to Committee on the Electoral 
Count 

February 9, 1865 

[Lincoln had been renominated for the Presi- 
dency by the Republican Convention which 
met in Baltimore on June 7, 1S64, and was 
elected on November 8 by a plurality of 
nearly half a million in the popular vote. In 
the Electoral College he had 212 votes to 21 for 
McClellan.J 

With deep gratitude to my countrymen for 
this mark of their confidence ; with a distrust 
of my own ability to perform the duty required 
under the most favorable circumstances, and 
now rendered doubly difficult by existing na- 
tional perils ; yet with a firm reliance on the 
strength of our free government, and the event- 
ual loyalty of the people to the just principles 
upon which it is founded, and above all with an 
unshaken faith in the Supreme Ruler of na- 
tions, I accept this trust. Be pleased to signify 
this to the respective Houses of Congress. 



Second Inaugural Address 

March 4, 1865 

[" The ' Second Inaugural ' — a written com- 
position, though read to the citizens from the 
steps of the Capitol — well illustrates our words. 
Mr. Lincoln had to tell his countrymen that, 
after a four years' struggle, the war was practi- 
cally ended. The four years' agony, the pas- 
sion of love which he felt for his country, his 
joy in her salvation, his sense of tenderness for 
those who fell, of pity mixed with sternness for 
the men who had deluged the land with blood 
— all the thoughts these feelings inspired were 
behind Lincoln pressing for expression. A 
writer of less power would have been over- 
whelmed. Lincoln remained master of the 
•emotional and intellectual situation. In three 
or four hundred words that burn with the heat 
of their compression, he tells the history of the 
war and reads its lesson. No nobler thoughts 
were ever conceived. No man ever found 
words more adequate to his desire. Here is 
the whole tale of the nation's shame and mis- 
ery, of her heroic struggles to free herself there- 
from, and of her victory. Had Lincoln written 
a hundred times as much more, he would not 
have said more fully what he desired to say. 
Every thought receives its complete expression, 
and there is no word employed which does not 
directly and manifestly contribute to the devel- 
102 



Second Inaugural Address 

opment of the central thought." — The {London) 
Spectator, May 2d, 1891. 

Compare also Lincoln's letter to Thurlow 
Weed at the close of this volume of selections.] 

Fe I low-country 7nen : At this second appear- 
ing to take the oath of the presidential office, 
there is less occasion for an extended address 
than there was at the first. Then a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, 
seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the ex- 
piration of four years, during which public dec- 
larations have been constantly called forth on 
every point and phase of the great contest which 
still absorbs the attention and engrosses the 
energies of the nation, little that is new could 
be presented. The progress of our arms, upon 
which all else chiefly depends, is as well known 
to the public as to myself ; and it is, I trust, 
reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. 
With high hope for the future, no prediction in 
regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four 
years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed 
to an impending civil war. All dreaded it — all 
sought to avert it. While the maugural ad- 
dress was being delivered from this place, de- 
voted altogether to saving the Union without 
war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking 
to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve 
the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. 
Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them 
would make war rather than let the nation sur- 
103 



Abraham Lincoln 

vive ; and the other would accept war rathei 
than let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were col-' 
ored slaves, not distributed generally over the 
Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. 
These slaves constituted a peculiar and power- 
ful interest. All knew that this interest was, 
somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen , 
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the ob- 
ject for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war ; while the government 
claimed no right to do more than to restrict the 
territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the mag- 
nitude or the duration which it has already at- 
tained. Neither anticipated that the cause of 
the conflict might cease with, or even before, 
the conflict itself should cease. Each looked 
for an easier triumph, and a result less funda- 
mental and astounding. Both read the same 
Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each in- 
vokes his aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any men should dare to ask a just 
God's assistance in wringing their bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge 
not, that we be not judged. The prayers of 
both could not be answered — that of neither has 
been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe 

unto the world because of offenses ! for it must 

needs be that ofEenses come ; but woe to that 

man by whom the offense cometh." If we 

104 



Second Inaugural Address 

shall suppose that American slavery is one of 
those offenses which, in the providence of God, 
must needs come, but which, having continued 
through his appointed time, he now wills to re- 
move, and that he gives to both North and 
South this terrible war, as the woe due to those 
oy whom the offense came, shall we discern 
therein any departure from those divine at- 
tributes which the believers in a living God 
always ascribe to him ? Fondly do we hope — 
fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God 
wills that it continue until all the wealth piled 
by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be s ink, and until every 
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid 
by another drawn with the sword, as was said 
three thousand years ago, so still it must be 
said, " The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none ; with charity for 
all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us 
to see the right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in ; to bind up the nation's 
wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves, and with 
all nations. 



105 



Letters 



107 



To McClellan 

February 3, 1862 

[General McClellan had succeeded General 
Scott on November i, 1861, as 'Commander- 
in-Chief (under the President) of all the armies 
of the United States. On January 31, 1862, 
the President had issued his " Special War Or- 
der No. I," directing a forward movement of 
the Army of the Potomac. This order conflicted 
with plans which McClellan had formed, and 
he remonstrated. Lincoln's reply is a good 
illustration of his power of compact statement, 
as well as of his mastery of the military situa- 
tion.] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, February 3, 1862. 
Major-General McClellan : 

My dear Sir : You and I have distinct and 
different plans for a movement of the Army of 
the Potomac — yours to be down the Chesapeake, 
up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across 
land to the terminus of the railroad on the York 
River ; mine to move directly to a point on the 
railroad southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to 
the following questions, I shall gladly yield my 
plan to yours. 

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly 
109 



Abraham Lincoln 

larger expenditure of time and money than 



mine 



Seco7id. Wherein is a victory more certain by 
your plan than mine ? 

Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable 
by your plan than mine ? 

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable 
in this, that it would break no great line of the 
enemy's communications, while mine would ? 

Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat 
be more difficult by your plan than mine ? 
Yours truly, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Major-General McClellan. 



no 



To Seward 

June 28, 1S62 

[This letter was written to W. H. Seward^ 
the Secretary of State, shortly after the Union 
victories in Kentucky and Tennessee and upon 
the Mississippi River, in the spring of 1862.] 

Executive Mansion, June 28, 1862. 
Hon. W. H. Seward : 

My dear Sir : My view of the present condi- 
tion of the war is about as follows : 

The evacuation of Corinth and our delay by 
the flood in the Chickahominy have enabled the 
enemy to concentrate too much force in Rich- 
mond for McClellan to successfully attack. In 
fact there soon will be no substantial rebel 
force anj'where else. But if we send all the 
force from here to McClellan, the enemy will, 
before we can know of it, send a force from 
Richmond and take Washington. Or if a large 
part of the western army be brought here to 
McClellan, they will let us have Richmond, and 
retake Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, etc. 
What should be done is to hold what we have 
in the West, open the Mississippi, and take 
Chattanooga and East Tennessee without more. 
A reasonable force should in every event he. 
Ill 



Abraham Lincoln 

kept about Washington for its protection. 
Then let the country give us a hundred thou- 
sand new troops in the shortest possible time, 
which, added to McClellan directly or indirectly, 
will take Richmond without endangering any- 
other place which we now hold, and w^ii sub- 
stantially end the war. I expect to maintain 
this contest until successful, or till I die, or am 
conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or 
the country forsake me ; and I would publicly 
appeal to the country for this new force were 
it not that I fear a general panic and stampede 
would follow, so hard it is to have a thing un- 
derstood as it really is. I think the new force 
should be all, or nearly all. infantry, principally 
because such can be raised most cheaply and 
quickly. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



To Greeley 

August 22, 1862 

[Horace Greeley, the famous editor of the 
New York Tribiuie, though an ardent opponent 
of slavery, was a constant critic of Lincoln's 
policy, and indeed opposed his renomination 
for the Presidency. His erratic editorials con- 
cerning the Administration were a continual 
source of anxiety to Lincoln,] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. 

Hon. Horace Greeley : 

Dear Sir : I have just read yours of the 19th, 
addressed to myself through the New York 
Tribune. If there be in it any statements or 
assumptions of fact which I may know to be 
erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert 
them. If there be in it any inferences which I 
may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now 
and here, argue against them. If there be per- 
ceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, 
I waive it in deference to t n old friend whose 
heart I have always supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in 
doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the 
shortest way under the Constitution. The 
113 



Abraham Lincoln 

sooner the national authority can be restored, 
the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it 
was." If there be those who would not save 
the Union unless they could at the same time 
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If 
there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My para- 
mount object in this struggle is to save the 
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy 
slavery. If I could save the Union without 
freeing any slave, I would do it ; and if I could 
save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; 
and if I could save it by freeing some and leav- 
ing others alone, I would also do that. What I 
do about slavery and the colored race, I do be- 
cause I believe it helps to save the Union ; and 
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not be- 
lieve it would help to save the Union. I shall 
do less whenever I shall believe what I am 
doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when- 
ever I shall believe doing more will help the 
cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown 
to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so 
fast as they shall appear to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to 
my view of official duty ; and I intend no modi- 
fication of my oft-expressed personal wish that 
all men everywhere could be free. 

Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



114 



To the Workingmen of Manchester 

January 19, 1863 

[The blockade of Confederate ports during 
the war was naturally a severe blow to the Eng- 
lish manufacturing centres like Manchester, 
which had depended upon the Southern States 
for their supply of cotton. But the working 
classes of England, in marked contrast with the 
upper classes, displayed strong Union sympa- 
thies throughout the struggle. An address 
from the Manchester workingmen called forth 
this admirable reply from the President.] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, January ig, 1863. 

To THE Workingmen of Manchester : I have 
the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the ad- 
dress and resolutions which you sent me on the 
eve of the new year. When I came, on the 
4th of March, 1861, through a free and constitu- 
tional election to preside in the Government of 
the United States, the country was found at the 
verge of civil war. Whatever might have been 
the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty, 
paramount to all others, was before me, namely, 
to maintain and preserve at once the Constitu- 
tion and the integrity of the Federal Republic. 
A conscientious purpose to perform this duty is 
the key to all the measures of administration 
which have been and to all which will hereafter 
be pursued. Under our frame of government 
115 



Abraham Lincoln 

and my official oath, I could not depart from 
this purpose if I would. It is not always in the 
power of governments to enlarge or restrict the 
scope of moral results which follow the policies 
that they may deem it necessary for the public 
safety from time to time to adopt. 

I have understood well that the duty of self- 
preservation rests solely with the American peo- 
ple ; but I have at the same time been aware 
that favor or disfavor of foreign nations might 
have a material influence in enlarging or pro- 
longing the struggle with disloyal men in which 
the country is engaged. A fair examination of 
history has served to authorize a belief that the 
past actions and influences of the United States 
were generally regarded as having been bene- 
ficial toward mankind. I have, therefore, reck- 
oned upon the forbearance of nations. Circum- 
stances — to some of which you kindly allude^ 
induce me especially to expect that if justice 
and good faith should be practised by the 
United States, they would encounter no hostile 
influence on the part of Great Britain. It is 
now a pleasant duty to acknowledge the dem- 
onstration you have given of your desire that a 
spirit of amity and peace toward this country 
may prevail in the councils of your Queen, who 
is respected and esteemed in your own country 
only more than she is by the kindred nation 
which has its home on this side of the Atlantic. 
I know and deeply deplore the sufferings 
which the workingmen at Manchester, and in 
ii6 



To Workingmen of Manchester 

all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis. 
It has been often and studiously represented 
that the attempt to overthrow this government, 
which was built upon the foundation of human 
rights, and to substitute for it one which should 
rest exclusively on the basis of human slavery, 
was likely to obtain the favor of Europe. 
Through the action of our disloyal citizens, the 
workingmen of Europe have been subjected to 
severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their 
sanction to that attempt. Under the circum- 
stances, I cannot but regard your decisive utter- 
ances upon the question as an instance of 
sublime Christian heroism which has not been 
surpassed in any age or in any country. It is 
indeed an energetic and reinspiring assurance 
of the inherent power of truth, and of the ulti- 
mate and universal triumph of justice, human- 
ity, and freedom. I do not doubt that the sen- 
timents you have expressed will be sustained 
by your great nation ; and, on the other hand, 
I have no hesitation in assuring you that they 
will excite admiration, esteem, and the most re- 
ciprocal feelings of friendship among the Ameri- 
can people. I hail this interchange of senti- 
ment, therefore, as an augury that whatever 
else may happen, whatever misfortune may be- 
fall your country or my own, the peace and 
friendship which now exist between the two 
nations will be, as it shall be my desire to make 
them, perpetual. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
117 



To Hooker 

January 26, 1S63 

[This letter to General Joseph Hooker, ap- 
pointing him the successor of General Burnside 
as commander of the Army of the Potomac, is 
one of Lincoln's most characteristic utterances 
— frank, kind, and gravely ironical. Notice the 
phrase, " I will risk the dictatorship."] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, Januarj^ 26, 1863. 
Major-General Hooker : 

General : I have placed you at the head of 
the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have 
done this upon v^hat appear to me to be suffi- 
cient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to 
know that there are some things in regard to 
which I am not quite satisfied with you. I be- 
lieve you to be a brave and skilful soldier, 
which of course I like. I also believe you do 
not mix politics with your j^rofession, in which 
you are right. You have confidence in your- 
self, which is a valuable if not an indispensable 
quality. You are ambitious, which, within rea- 
sonable bounds, does good rather than harm ; 
but I think that during General Burnside's 
command of the army you have taken counsel 
of your ambition and thwarted him as much as 
you could, in which you did a great wrong to 
11^ 



lo Hooker 

the country and to a most meritorious and hon- 
orable brother officer. I have heard, in such a 
way as to beheve it, of your recently saying 
that both the army and the government needed 
a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in 
spite of it, that I have given you the command. 
Only those generals who gain successes can set 
up dictators. What I now ask of you is mili- 
tary success, and I will risk the dictatorship. 
The government will support you to the utmost 
of its ability, which is neither more nor less 
than it has done and will do for all commanders. 
I much fear that the spirit which you have aided 
to infuse into the army, of criticising their com- 
mander and withholding confidence from him, 
will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as 
far as 1 can to put it down. Neither you nor 
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any 
good out of an army while such a spirit prevails 
in it ; and now beware of rashness. Beware of 
rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigi- 
lance go forward and give us victories. 
Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



119 



To Burnside 

July 27, 1863 

[This telegram is noticeable for its brief but 
comprehensive description of General Grant.] 

War Department, "Washington, July 27, 1863. 
Major-General Burnside, Cincinnati, Ohio : 

Let me explain. In General Grant's first de- 
spatch after the fall of Vicksburg, he said, 
among other things, he would send the Ninth 
Corps to you. Thinking it would be pleasant 
to you, I asked the Secretary of War to tele- 
graph you the news. For some reasons never 
mentioned to us by General Grant, they have 
not been sent, though we have seen outside in- 
timations that they took part in the exj^edition 
against Jackson. General Grant is a copious 
worker and fighter, but a very meager writer 
or telegrapher. No doubt he changed his pur- 
pose in regard to the Ninth Corps for some 
sufficient reason, but has forgotten to notify us 
of it. 

A. Lincoln. 



120 



To Edward Everett 

November 20, 1863 

[See the note prefixed to Lincoln's Gettys- 
burg address.] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 20, 1863. 
Hon. Edward Everett : 

My dear Sir : Your kind note of to-day is re- 
ceived. In our respective parts yesterday, you 
could not have been excused to make a short 
address, nor I a long one. I am pleased to know 
that, in your judgment, the little I did say was 
not entirely a failure. Of course I knew Mr. 
Everett would not fail, and yet, while the whole 
discourse was eminently satisfactory, and will 
be of great value, there were passages in it which 
transcended my expectations. The point made 
against the theory of the General Government 
being only an agency whose principals are the 
States, was new to me, and, as I think, is one 
of the best arguments for the national suprem- 
acy. The tribute to our noble women for their 
angel ministering to the suffering soldiers sur- 
passes in its way, as do the subjects of it, what- 
ever has gone before. 

Our sick boy, for whom you kindly inquire, 
we hope is past the worst. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



To Grant 

April 30, 1S64 

[The spring campaign of 1864 marked " the 
beginning of the end" of the RebelHon. This 
letter is one of many proofs of Lincohi's abso- 
lute confidence m Grant's generalship.] 

Executive Mansion, "Washington, April 30, 1864. 
Lieutenant-General Grant : 

Not expecting to see you again before the 
spring campaign opens, I wish to express in 
this way my entire satisfaction with what you 
have done up to this time, so far as I under- 
stand it. The particulars of your plans I neither 
know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and 
self-reliant ; and, pleased with this, I wish not 
to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon 
you. While I am very anxious that any great 
disaster or capture of our men m great numbers 
shall be avoided, I know these points are less 
likely to escape your attention than they would 
be mine. If there is anything wanting which 
is within my power to give, do not fail to let 
me know it. An'd now, wHh a brave army and 
a just cause, may God sustain you. 
Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 
122 



To Mrs. Bixby 

November 21, 1864 

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts : 

Dear Madam : I have been shown in the files 
of the War Department a statement of the Ad- 
jutant-General of Massachusetts that you are 
the mother of five sons who have died glori- 
ously on the field of battle. I feel how weak 
and fruitless must be any words of mine which 
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of 
a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain 
from tendering to you the consolation that may 
be found in the thanks of the Republic they 
died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, 
and leave you only the cherished memory of 
the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that 
must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice 
upon the altar of freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



123 



To Thurlow Weed 

March 15, 1865 

[This most interesting letter, written a month 
before Lincoln's assassination, should be read 
in connection with the second inaugural ad- 
dress.] 

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 15, 1865. 
Dear Mr. Weed : 

Every one likes a compliment. Thank you 
for yours on my little notification speech and on 
the recent inaugural address. I expect the lat- 
ter to wear as well as — perhaps better than — 
anything I have produced ; but I believe it is 
not immediately popular. Men are not flattered 
by being shown that there has been a differ- 
ence of purpose between the Almighty and 
them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to 
deny that there is a God governing the world. 
It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, 
and, as whatever of humiliation there is in it 
falls most directly on myself, I thought others 
might afford for me to tell it. 

Truly yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



124 



Appendix 



125 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech 



"■5f 



The Republican party was first organized in 
Illinois on May 29th, 1856, at a State conven- 
tion held in Bloom ington. It was here that 
Abraham Lincoln made the speech which defi- 
nitely severed his relations with the Whigs and 
allied him to the new organization. For two 
years previous he had been slowly working 
toward this change. The failure of his political 
ambitions in the summer of ^849 had decided 
him henceforth lo devote himself to the law. 
For nearly six years he had kept this resolution. 
Then, in the spring of 1854, the passage by 
Congress of the Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and establish- 
ing the principle of popular sovereignty, had so 
aroused him that he flung himself again into 
politics. 

Elected to the legislature in the fall of 1854, 
Lincoln had resigned in order to contest the 
vacant seat in the United States Senate. He 
showed in this campaign how much more im- 
portant he considered it to insure legislation 
against slavery extension than to elect one of 
his own party ; for when he found that the bal- 

* Copyright. i8q6, by Sarah A. Whitney. 
12? 



Abraham Lincoln 

ance of power in the legislature which w^as to 
elect the senator was held by five anti-Nebraska 
Democrats, he persuaded his supporters to go 
over to the five, whom he knew to be of the 
same mind as himself in regard to the extension 
of slavery, rather than to allow a combination 
on a man who would oppose the measure but 
lukewarmly. 

When, in the spring of 1856, the lUinois op- 
ponents of slavery extension had sufficient 
strength to form another branch of the now 
rapidly growing Republican party, Lincoln was 
ready to join them. The speech he made at 
the first convention was long known in Illinois 
as " Lincoln's Lost Speech," a name given it 
because the reporters were so carried away by 
his eloquence that they forgot to take notes and 
could give no report to their papers. As Lin- 
coln himself refused to try to write it out, it 
was supposed to have been, in fact, a "lost 
speech." 

It seems, however, that though the reporters, 
under the effect of Lincoln's eloquence, all lost 
their heads, there was at least one auditor who 
had enough control to pursue his usual habit of 
making notes of the speeches he heard. This 
was a young lawyer on the same circuit as Lin- 
coln, Mr. H. C. Whitney. For some three 
weeks before the convention, Lincoln and Whit- 
ney had been attending court at Danv'lle. 
They had discussed the political situation in the 
State carefully, and to Whitney, Lincoln had 
128 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

stated his convictions and determinations. 
Knowing as he did that Lincoln had not writ- 
ten out his speech, Whitney went to the con- 
vention intending to take notes. Fortunately, 
he had a cool enough head to keep to his pur- 
pose. These notes Whitney kept for many 
years, always intending to write them out, but 
never attending to it, until in 1896 McClure's 
Magazme learned that he had them, and per- 
suaded him to carry out his intention. Mr. 
Whitney does not claim that he has made a per- 
fect report. He does claim, however, that the 
argument is correct, and that in many cases the 
expressions are exact. 

The speech has been submitted to several of 
those who were at the Bloomington convention, 
among others to Mr. Joseph Medill, editor of 
the Chicago Tribune^ who says : 

Mr. Medill's Letter 
(^Slightly C07ideiised) 

Chicago, May 15, i8g6. 

Editor McClure's Magazine, 
New York City : 
Dear Sir : You invited my attention recently 
to H. C. Whitney's report of the great radical 
" anti-Nebraska" speech of Mr. Lincoln, deliv- 
ered in Bloomington, May 29th, 1856, before 
the first Republican State Convention of IlHnois ; 
and, as I was present as a delegate and heard 
it, you ask me to state how accurately, accord- 
129 



Abraham Lincoln 

ing to my best recollection, it is reproduced in 
this report. 

I have carefully and reflectively read it, and 
taking into account that Mr. Whitney did not 
take down the speech stenographically, but 
only took notes, and afterward wrote them out 
in full, he has reproduced with remarkable ac- 
curacy what Mr. Lincoln said, largely in his 
identical language and partly in synonymous 
terms. The report is close enough in thought 
and word to recall the wonderful speech deliv- 
ered forty years ago with vivid freshness. No 
one was expecting a great speech at the time. 
We all knew that he could say something worthy 
of the occasion, but nobody anticipated such a 
Demosthenean outburst of oratory. There was 
great political excitement at the time in Illinois 
and all over the old Northwest, growing out of 
the efforts of the South to introduce slavery into 
Kansas and Nebraska. The free-soil men were 
highly wrought up in opposition, and Mr. Lin- 
coln partook of their feelings. 

I am unable to point out those sentences and 
parts of the reported speech which vary most in 
phraseology from the precise language he used, 
because there is an approximation of his words 
in every part of it. The ideas uttered are all 
there. The sequence of argument is accurately j 
given. The invectives hurled at pro-slavery 
aggression are not exaggerated in the report of 
the speech. Some portions of the argument 
citing pro-slavery aggressions seem rather more 
130 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

elaborate than he delivered ; but he was speak- 
ing under a high degree of excitement, and the 
convention was in a responsive mood, and it is 
impossible to be certain about it. The least 
that can be said is, that the Whitney report, 
not being shorthand, is yet a remarkably good 
one, and is the only one in existence that repro- 
duces the speech. 

During all the preceding year the public mind 
of the West had been lashed into a high state 
of commotion over the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise the year before, which had ex- 
cluded the introduction of slavery into all terri- 
tory north of 36.30 degrees. Taking advantage 
of the repeal, the slaveholders of Missouri and 
other slave States, aided by the administration 
of Franklin Pierce, were striving to convert 
Kansas and Nebraska into slave States. This 
bad work was carried on actively in the spring 
of 1856. Many houses of the free-State men of 
the new city of Lawrence, including their hotel, 
were burnt. Printing-offices were destroyed ; 
store goods were carried off ; horses and cattle 
were stolen ; sharp fights were taking place ; 
men were being killed, and civil war was rag- 
ing in " bleeding Kansas." 

While this state of things was going on, the 
first State Republican Convention ever held in 
Illinois assembled in Bloomington, May 29th, 
1856. It was composed of Abolitionists, Free- 
Soil Whigs, and "Anti-Nebraska" Democrats. 
Owen Lovejoy embodied the first named, Abra- 
131 



Abraham Lincoln 

ham Lincoln and John M. Palmer, the second 
and third elements ; the whole united, made 
the new Republican party. 

At this Bloomington Republican convention 
delegates were appointed who voted to nomi- 
nate Fremont for President. Abraham Lincoln 
was placed at the head of the State electoral 
ticket, and Colonel Bissell (of the Mexican War) 
was nominated for Governor, and free-soil reso- 
lutions were passed. Mr. John M. Palmer pre- 
sided and made a stirring free-soil speech. 

Mr. Emery, a "free-State" man just from 
"bleeding Kansas," told of the "border ruffian" 
raids from Missouri upon the free-State settlers 
in Kansas : the burnings, robberies, and mur- 
ders they were then committing ; and asked for 
help to repel them. When he finished, Lincoln 
was vociferously called for from all parts of 
Major's large hall. He came forward and took 
the platform beside the presiding officer. At 
first his voice was shrill and hesitating. There 
was a curious introspective look in his eyes, 
which lasted for a few moments. Then his 
voice began to move steadily and smoothly for- 
ward, and the modulations were under perfect 
control from thenceforward to the finish. He 
warmed up as he went on, and spoke more rap- 
idly ; he looked a foot taller as he straightened 
himself to his full height, and his eyes flashed 
fire ; his countenance became wrapped in in- 
tense emotion ; he rushed along like a thunder- 
storm. He prophesied war as the outcome of 
132 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

these aggressions, and poured forth hot denun- 
ciations upon the slave power. The convention 
was kept in an uproar, applauding and cheer- 
ing and stamping ; and this reacted on the 
speaker, and gave him a tongue of fire. The 
thrilling scene in that old Bloomington hall 
forty years ago arises in my mind as vividly as 
the day after its enactment. 

There stood Lincoln in the forefront, erect, 
tall, and majestic in appearance, hurling thun- 
derbolts at the foes of freedom, while the great 
convention roared its endorsement ! I never 
witnessed such a scene before or since. As he 
described the aims and aggressions of the un- 
appeasable slaveholders and the servility of 
their Northern allies as illustrated by the per- 
fidious repeal of the Missouri Compromise two 
years previously, and their grasping after the 
rich prairies of Kansas and Nebraska, to blight 
them with slavery and to deprive free labor of 
this rich inheritance, and exhorted the friends 
of freedom to resist them to the death, the con- 
vention went fairly wild. It paralleled or ex- 
ceeded the scene in the Revolutionary Virginia 
convention of eighty-one years before, when 
Patrick Henry invoked death if liberty could 
not be preserved, and said, " After all we must 
fight." Strange, too, that this same man re- 
ceived death a few years afterward while con- 
ferring freedom on the slave race and preserv- 
ing the American Union from dismemberment. 

While Mr. Lincoln did not write out even a 
133 



Abraham Lincoln 

memorandum of his Bloomington speech before- 
hand, neither was it extemporary. He intend- 
ed days before to make it, and conned it over 
in his mind in outUne, and gathered his facts, 
and arranged his arguments in regular order, 
and trusted to the inspiration of the occasion to 
furnish him the diction with which to clothe the 
skeleton of his great oration. It is difficult to 
name any speech by another orator delivered 
on the same subject about that time or subse- 
quently that equalled it — not excepting those 
made by Sumner, Seward, or Chase— in strength 
of argument or dramatic power. 

It was my journalistic duty, though a dele- 
gate to the convention, to make a longhand re- 
port of the speeches delivered, for the Chicago 
Tribune. I did make a few paragraphs of re- 
port of what Lincoln said in the first eight or 
ten minutes ; but I became so absorbed in his 
magnetic oratory that I forgot myself and 
ceased to take notes, and joined with the con- 
vention in cheering and stamping and clapping 
to the end of his speech. I well remember that 
after Lincoln had sat down and calm had suc- 
ceeded the tempest, I waked out of a sort of 
hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report 
for the Tribune. There was nothing written 
but an abbreviated introduction. It was some 
sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been 
" scooped," as all the newspaper men pres- 
ent had been equally carried away by the 
excitement caused by the wonderful oration, 
134 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

and had made no report or sketch of the 
speech. 

It was fortunate, however, that a cool-nerved 
young lawyer and ardent friend of Lincoln's 
who was present, with nimble fingers took 
down so much of the exact words as they fell 
from the great orator's lips, that he was after- 
ward able to reproduce the speech almost iden- 
tically as it was uttered, and has thus saved it 
to posterity. 

Mr. Lincoln was strongly urged by party 
friends to write out his speech, to be used as a 
campaign document for the Fremont Presiden- 
tial contest of that year ; but he declared that 
"it would be impossible for him to recall the 
language he used on that occasion, as he had 
spoken under some excitement." 

My belief is that, after Mr. Lincoln cooled 
down, he was rather pleased that his speech 
had not been reported, as it was too radical in 
expression on the slavery question for the diges- 
tion of central and southern Illinois at that time, 
and that he preferred to let it stand as a remem- 
brance in the minds of his audience. But be 
that as it may, the effect of it was such on his 
hearers that he bounded to the leadership of the 
new Republican party of Illinois, and no man 
afterward ever thought of disputing that po- 
sition with him. On that occasion he planted 
the seed which germinated into a Presidential 
candidacy, and that gave him the nomination 
over Seward at the Chicago Convention of i860. 
135 



Abraham Lincoln 

which placed him in the Presidential chair, 
there to complete his predestined work of de- 
stroying slavery and making freedom univer- 
sal, but yielding his life as a sacrifice for the 
glorious deeds. 

I am, very respectfully yours, 

Joseph Medill. 

Mr. Lincoln's Speech 

Mr. Chairman atid Gentletnen : I was over 
at [cries of " Platform !" " Take the plat- 
form !"] — I say, that while I was at Danville 
Court, some of our friends of anti-Nebraska got 
together in Springfield and elected me as one 
delegate to represent old Sangamon with them 
in this convention, and I am here certainly as a 
sympathizer in this movement and by virtue of 
that meeting and selection. But we can hardly 
be called delegates strictly, inasmuch as, prop- 
erly speaking, we represent nobody but our- 
selves. I think it altogether fair to say that we 
have no anti-Nebraska party in Sangamon, 
although there is a good deal of anti-Nebraska 
feeling there ; but I say for myself, and I think 
I may speak also for my colleagues, that we 
who are here fully approve of the platform and 
of all that has been done [a voice : " Yes ! "] ; 
and even if we are not regularly delegates, it 
will be right for me to answer your call to 
speak. I suppose we truly stand for the public 
sentiment of Sangamon on the great question 
136 



*' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

of the repeal, although we do not yet represent 
many numbers who have taken a distinct po- 
sition on the question. 

We are in a trying time — it ranges above 
mere party — and this movement to call a halt 
and turn our steps backward needs all the help 
and good counsels it can get ; for unless popu- 
lar opinion makes itself very strongly felt, and 
a change is made in our present course, blood 
will flow oil account of Nebraska, aiid broth- 
er' s hand will be raised against brother ! 
[The last sentence was uttered in such an ear- 
nest, impressive, if not, indeed, tragic, manner, 
as to make a cold chill creep over me. Others 
gave a similar experience.] 

I have listened with great interest to the ear- 
nest appeal made to Illinois men by the gentle- 
man from Lawrence [James S. Emery] who 
has just addressed us so eloquently and forci- 
bly. I was deeply moved by his statement of 
the wrongs done to free-State men out there. 
I think it just to say that all true men North 
should sympathize with them, and ought to be 
willing to do any possible and needful thing 
to right their wrongs. But we must not prom- 
ise what we ought not, lest we be called on to 
perform what we cannot ; we must be calm 
and moderate, and consider the whole diffi- 
culty, and determine what is possible and just. 
We must not be led by excitement and passion 
to do that which our sober judgments would 
not approve in our cooler moments. We have 
137 



Abraham Lincoln 

higher aims ; we will have more serious busi- 
ness than to dally with temporary measures. 

We are here to stand firmly for a principle — 
to stand firmly for a right. We know that 
great political and moral wrongs are done, and 
outrages committed, and we denounce those 
wrongs and outrages, although we cannot, at 
present, do much more. But we desire to reach 
out beyond those personal outrages and estab- 
lish a rule that will apply to all, and so prevent 
any future outrages. 

We have seen to-day that every shade of 
popular opinion is represented here, with Free- 
dom or rather Free- Soil as the basis. We have 
come together as in some sort representatives 
of popular opinion against the extension of 
slavery into territory now free in fact as well 
as by law, and the pledged word of the states- 
men of the nation who are now no more. We 
come — we are here assembled together — to pro- 
test as well as we can against a great wrong, 
and to take measures, as well as we now can, 
to make that wrong right ; to place the nation, 
as far as it may be possible now, as it was be- 
fore the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; 
and the plain way to do this is to restore the 
Compromise, and to demand and determine 
that Kansas shall be free ! [Immense ap- 
plause.] While we affirm, and reaffirm, if nec- 
essary, our devotion to the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence, let our practical 
work here be limited to the above. We know 
138 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

that there is not a perfect agreement of senti- 
ment here on the pubhc questions which might 
be rightfully considered in this convention, and 
that the indignation which we all must feel can- 
not be helped ; but all of us must give up some- 
thing for the good of the cause. There is one 
desire which is uppermost in the mind, one 
wish common to us all — to which no dissent 
will be made ; and I counsel you earnestly to 
bury all resentment, to sink all personal feel- 
ing, make all things work to a common purpose 
in which we are united and agreed about, and 
which all present will agree is absolutely neces- 
sary — which must be done by any rightful 
mode if there be such : Slavery must be kept 
out of Kansas ! [Applause.] The test — the 
pinch — is right there. If we lose Kansas to 
freedom, an example will be set which will 
prove fatal to freedom in the end. We, there- 
fore, in the language of the Bible, must " lay 
the axe to the root of the tree." Temporizing 
will not do longer ; now is the time for decision 
— for firm, persistent, resolute action. [Ap- 
plause.] 

The Nebraska bill, or rather Nebraska law, 
is not one of wholesome legislation, but was 
and is an act of legislative usurpation, whose 
result, if not indeed intention, is to make slavery 
national ; and unless headed off in some effec- 
tive way, we are in a fair way to see this land 
of boasted freedom converted into a land of 
slavery in fact. [Sensation.] Just open your 
139 



Abraham Lincoln 

two eyes, and see if this be not so. I need do 
no more than state, to command universal ap- 
proval, that almost the entire North, as well as 
a large following in the border States, is radi- 
cally opposed to the planting of slavery in free 
territory. Probably in a popular vote through- 
out the nation nine-tenths of the voters in the 
free States, and at least one-half in the border 
States, if they could express their sentiments 
freely, would vote NO on such an issue ; and it 
is safe to say that two-thirds of the votes of the 
entire nation would be opposed to it. And yet, 
in spite of this overbalancing of sentiment in 
this free country, we are in a fair way to see 
Kansas present itself for admission as a slave 
State. Indeed, it is a felony, by the local law 
of Kansas, to deny that slavery exists there 
even now. By every principle of law, a negro 
in Kansas is free ; yet the bogus legislature 
makes it an infamous crime to tell him that he 
is free !* 

The party lash and the fear of ridicule will 

* statutes of Kansas, 1855, Chapter 151, Section 12. If 
any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or 
maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves 
in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, 
print, publish, write, circulate . . . any book, paper, 
magazine, pamphlet, or circular containing any denial 
of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Territory, 
such person shall be deemed guilty oi felony, and pun- 
ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not 
less than two years. 

Sec. 13. No person who is conscientiously opposed to 
holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to 
hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a juror on the 
trial of any prosecution for any violation of any sec- 
tions of this Act. 

140 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

overawe justice and liberty ; for it is a singular 
fact, but none the less a fact, and well known 
by the most common experience, that men will 
do things under the terror of the party lash that 
they would not on any account or for any con- 
sideration do otherwise ; while men who will 
march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon with- 
out shrinking, will run from the terrible name 
of " Abolitionist," even when pronounced by a 
worthless creature whom they, with good rea- 
son, despise. For instance— to press this point 
a little— Judge Douglas introduced his anti- 
Nebraska bill in January ; and we had an ex- 
tra session of our legislature in the succeeding 
February, in which were seventy-five Demo- 
crats ; and at a party caucus, fully attended, 
there were just three votes out of the whole 
seventy-five, for the measure. But in a feW 
days orders came on from Washington, com- 
manding them to approve the measure ; the 
party lash was applied, and it was brought up 
again in caucus, and passed by a large major- 
ity. The masses were against it, but party 
necessity carried it ; and it was passed through 
the lower house of Congress against the will of 
the people, for the same reason. Here is where 
the greatest danger lies — that, while we profess 
to be a government of law and reason, law will 
give way to violence on demand of this awful 
and crushing power. Like the great Jugger- 
naut — I think that is the name— the great idol, 
it crushes everything that comes in its way, and 
141 



Abraham Lincoln 

makes a — or as I read once, in a black-letter 
law book, "a slave is a human being who is 
legally not a. person, but a thing.'' And if the 
safeguards to liberty are broken down, as is 
now attempted, when they have made t/migs 
of all the free negroes, how long, think you, be- 
fore they will begin to make thmgs of poor 
white men ? [Applause.] Be not deceived. 
Revolutions do not go backward. The founder 
of the Democratic party declared that all men 
were created equal. His successor in the lead- 
ership has written the word "white" before 
men, making it read " all white men are cre- 
ated equal." Pray, will or may not the Know- 
nothings, if they should get in power, add the 
word " protestant," making it read " all prot- 
estajit white men'' ? 

Meanwhile the hapless negro is the fruitful 
subject of reprisals in other quarters. John 
Pettit, whom Tom Benton paid his respects to, 
you will recollect, calls the immortal Declara- 
tion "a self-evident lie ;" while at the birth- 
place of freedom — in the shadow of Bunker 
Hill and of the " cradle of liberty," at the home 
of the Adamses and Warren and Otis — Choate, 
from our side of the house, dares to fritter away 
the birthday promise of liberty by proclaiming 
the Declaration to be "a string of glittering 
generalities ;" and the Southern Whigs, work- 
ing hand in hand with pro-slavery Democrats, 
are making Choate' s theories practical. Thomas 
Jefferson, a slaveholder, mindful of the moral 
142 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

element in slavery, solemnly declared that he 
"trembled for his country when he remem- 
bered that God is just ;" while Judge Douglas, 
with an insignificant wave of the hand, " don't 
care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
down." Now, if slavery is right, or even nega- 
tive, he has a right to treat it in this trifling 
manner. But if it is a moral and political 
wrong, as all Christendom considers it to be, 
how can he answer to God for this attempt to 
spread and fortify it ? [Applause.] 

But no man, and Judge Douglas no more 
than any other, can maintain a negative, or 
merely neutral, position on this question ; and, 
accordingly, he avows that the Union was made 
by white men and/^r white men and their de- 
scendant's. As matter of fact, the first branch 
of the proposition is historically true ; the gov- 
ernment was made by white men, and they 
were and are the superior race. This I admit. 
But the corner-stone of the government, so to 
speak, was the declaration that " all men are 
created equal," and all entitled to " life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." [Applause.] 

And not only so, but the framers of the Con- 
stitution were particular to keep out of that in- 
strument the word "slave," the reason being 
that slavery would ultimately come to an end, 
and they did not wish to have any reminder 
that in this free country human beings were 
ever prostituted to slavery. [Applause.] Nor 
is it any argument that we are superior and the 
143 



Abraham Lincoln 

negro inferior — that he has but one talent while 
we have ten. Let the negro possess the little 
he has in independence ; if he has but one tal- 
ent, he should be permitted to keep the little 
he has. [Applause. J But slavery will endure 
no test of reason or logic ; and yet its advo- 
cates, like Douglas, use a sort of bastard logic, 
or noisy assumption, it might better be termed, 
like the above, in order to prepare the mind for 
the gradual, but none the less certain, encroach- 
ments of the Moloch of slavery upon the fair 
domain of freedom. But however much you 
may argue upon it, or smother it in soft phrases, 
slavery can only be maintained by force — by 
violence. The repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise was by violence. It was a violation of 
both law and the sacred obligations 6f honor, 
to overthrow and trample underfoot a solemn 
compromise, obtained by the fearful loss to 
freedom of one of the fairest of our Western 
domains. Congress violated the will and con- 
fidence of its constituents in voting for the bill ; 
and while public sentiment, as shown by the 
elections of 1854, demanded the restoration of 
this compromise, Congress violated its trust by 
refusing, simply because it had the force of 
num^^rs to hold on to it. And murderous vio- 
lence ic3 being used now, in order to force slavery 
on to Kansas ; for it cannot be done in any 
other way. [Se .ation.] 

The necessary result was to establish the rule 
of violence— force, instead of the rule of law 
144 



"Lincoln's Lost' Speech" 

and reason ; to perpetuate and spread slavery, 
and, in time, to make it general. We see it at 
both ends of the line. In Washington, on the 
very spot where the outrage was started, the 
fearless Sumner is beaten to jjnsensibility, and 
is now slowly dying ; while senators who claim 
to be gentlemen and Christians stood by, coun- 
tenancing the act, and even applauding it after- 
ward in their places in the Senate. Even 
Douglas, our man, saw it all and was within 
helping distance, yet let the murderous blows 
fall unopposed. Then, at the other end of the 
line, at the very time Sumner was being mur- 
dered, Lawrence was being destroyed for the 
crime of Freedom. It was the most prominent 
stronghold of liberty in Kansas, and must give 
way to the all-dominating power of slavery. 
Only two days ago, Judge Trumbull found it 
necessary to propose a bill in the Senate to pre- 
vent a general civil war and to restore peace in 
Kansas. 

We live in the midst of alarms ; anxiety be- 
clouds the future ; we expect some new disaster 
with each newspaper we read. Are we in a 
healthful political state ? Are not the tenden- 
cies plain ? Do not the signs of the times point 
plainly the way in which we are going ? Sen- 
sation.] 

In the early days of the Constitution slavery 

was recognized, by South anc North alike, as 

an evil, and the division of sentiment about it 

was not controlled by geographical lines or con- 

145 



Abraham Lincoln 

siderations of climate, but by moral and philan- 
thropic views. Petitions for the abolition of 
slavery were presented to the very first Con- 
gress by Virginia and Massachusetts alike. To 
show the harmony which prevailed, I will state 
that a fugitive slave law was passed in 1793, 
with no dissenting voice in the Senate, and but 
seven dissenting votes in the House. It was, 
however, a wise law, moderate, and, under the 
Constitution, a just one. Twenty-five years 
later, a more stringent law was proposed and 
defeated ; and thirty-five years after that, the 
present law, drafted by Mason of Virginia, was 
passed by Northern votes. I am not, just now, 
complaining of this law, but I am trying to 
show how the current sets ; for the proposed 
law of 181 7 was far less offensive than the pres- 
ent one. In 1774 the Continental Congress 
pledged itself, without a dissenting vote, to 
wholly discontinue the slave trade, and to 
neither purchase nor import any slave ; and 
less than three months before the passage of 
the Declaration of Independence, the same 
Congress which adopted that declaration unani- 
mously resolved " that no slave be imported 
into any of the thirteen United Colonies.'" 
[Great applause.] 

On the second day of July, 1776, the draft of 
a Declaration of Independence was reported to 
Congress by the committee, and in it the slave 
trade was characterized as "an execrable com- 
merce," as " a piratical warfare," as the " op- 
146 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

probrium of infidel powers," and as " a cruel 
war against human nature. ' ' [Applause.] All 
agreed on this except South Carolina and 
Georgia, and in order to preserve harmony, 
and from the necessity of the case, these ex- 
pressions were omitted. Indeed, abolition soci- 
eties existed as far south as Virginia ; and it is 
a well-known fact that Washington, Jefferson, 
Madison, Lee, Henry, Mason, and Pendleton 
were qualified abolitionists, and much more 
radical on that subject than we of the Whig 
and Democratic parties claim to be to-day. On 
March i, 1784, Virginia ceded to the confedera- 
tion all its lands lying northwest of the Ohio 
River. Jefferson, Chase of Maryland, and 
Howell of Rhode Island, as a committee on 
that and territory thereafter /o be ceded, re- 
ported that no slavery should exist after the 
year iSoo. Had this report been adopted, not 
only the Northwest, but Kentucky, Tennessee, 
Alabama, and Mississippi also would have been 
free ; but it required the assent of nine States 
to ratify it. North Carolina was divided, and 
thus its vote was lost ; and Delaware, Georgia, 
and New Jersey refused to vote. In point of 
fact, as it was, it was assented to by six States, 
Three years later, on a square vote to exclude 
slavery from the Northwest, only one vote, and 
that from New York, was against it. And yet, 
thirty-seven years later, five thousand citizens 
of Illinois out of a voting mass of less than 
twelve thousand, deliberately, after a long and 
H7 



Abraham Lincoln 

heated contest, voted to introduce slavery in 
Illinois ; and, to-day, a large party in the free 
State of Illinois are willing to vote to fasten the 
shackles of slavery on the fair domain of Kan- 
sas, notwithstanding it received the dowry of 
freedom long before its birth as a political com- 
munity. I repeat, therefore, the question, Is it 
not plain in what direction we are tending ? 
[Sensation.] In the colonial time. Mason, 
Pendleton, and Jefferson were as hostile to 
slavery in Virginia as Otis, Ames, and the 
Adamses were in Massachusetts ; and Virginia 
made as earnest an effort to get rid of it as old 
Massachusetts did. But circumstances were 
agamst them and they failed ; but not that the 
good will of its leading men was lacking. Yet 
within less than fifty years Virginia changed its 
tune, and made negro-breeding for the cotton 
and sugar States one of its leading industries. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

In the Constitutional Convention, George 
Mason of Virginia made a more violent aboli- 
tion speech than my friends Lovejoy or Cod- 
ding would desire to make here to-day — a 
speech which could not be safely repeated any- 
where on Southern soil in this enlightened year. 
But while there were some differences of opin- 
ion on this subject even then, discussion was 
allowed ; but as you see by the Kansas slave 
code, which, as you know, is the Missouri slave 
code, merely ferried across the river, it is a 
felony to even express an opinion hostile to that 
148 



'* Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

foul blot in the land of Washington and the 
Declaration of Independence. [Sensation,] 

In Kentucky — my State — in 1S49, on a test 
vote, the mighty influence of Henry Clay and 
many other good men there could not get a 
symptom of expression in favor of gradual 
emancipation on a plain issue of marching tow- 
ard the light of civilization with Ohio and 
Illinois ; but the State of Boone and Hardin 
and Henry Clay, with a nigger under each 
arm, took the black trail toward the deadly 
swamps of barbarism. Is there — can there be 
— any doubt about this thing ? And is there 
any doubt that we must all lay aside our prej- 
udices and march, shoulder to shoulder, in the 
great army of Freedom ? [Applause.] 

Every Fourth of July our young orators all 
proclaim this to be " the land of \h.Q free and 
the home of the brave !" Well, now, when you 
orators get that off next year, and, may be, this 
very year, how would you like some old griz- 
zled farmer to get up in the grove and deny it ? 
[Laughter.] How would you like that ? But 
suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State, and 
all the " border ruffians" have barbecues about 
it, and free-State men come trailing back to the 
dishonored North, like whipped dogs with their 
tails between their legs, it is — ain't it ? — evident 
that this is no more the " land of the free ;" 
and if we let it go so, we won't dare to say 
" home of the brave" out loud. [Sensation and 
confusion.] 

149 



Abraham Lincoln 

Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the 
people's will, slavery will triumph through vio- 
lence, unless that will be made manifest and 
enforced ? Even Governor Reeder claimed at 
the outset that the contest in Kansas was to be 
fair, but he got his eyes open at last ; and I be- 
lieve that, as a result of this moral and physical 
violence, Kansas will soon apply for admission 
as a slave State. And yet we can't mistake 
that the people don't want it so, and that it is 
a land which is free both by natural and politi- 
cal law. No law is free law ! Such is the 
understanding of all Christendom. In the Som 
erset case, decided nearly a century ago, the 
great Lord Mansfield held that slavery was of 
such a nature that it must take its rise in posi- 
tive (as distinguished from natural) law ; and 
that in no country or age could it be traced 
back to any other source. Will some one please 
tell me where is t\ie positive law that establishes 
slavery in Kansas ? [A voice : ' ' The bogus 
laws."] Aye, the bogus laws ! And, on the 
same principle, a gang of Missouri horse-thieves 
could come into Illinois and declare horse-steal- 
ing to be legal [Laughter] , and it would be just 
as legal as slavery is in Kansas. But by ex- 
press statute, in the land of Washington and 
Jefferson, we may soon be brought face to face 
with the discreditable fact of showing to the 
world by our acts that we prefer slavery to free- 
dom—darkness to light ! [Sensation ] 

It is, I believe, a principle in law that when 
150 



'' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

one party to a contract violates it so grossly as 
to chiefly destroy the object for which it is 
made, the other party may rescind it. I will 
ask Browning if that ain't good law. [Voices : 
" Yes !"] Well, now if that be right, I go for 
rescinding the whole, entire Missouri Compro- 
mise and thus turning Missouri into a free 
State ; and I should like to know the difference 
— should like for any one to point out the differ- 
ence — between our making a free State of Mis- 
souri and their making a slave State of Kansas. 
[Great applause.] There ain't one bit of differ- 
ence, except that our way would be a great 
mercy to humanity. But I have never said — 
and the Whig party has never said — and those 
who oppose the Nebraska bill do not as a body 
say, that they have any intention of interfering 
with slavery in the slave States. Our platform 
says just the contrary. We allow slavery to ex- 
ist in the slave States — not because slavery is 
right or good, but from the necessities of our 
Union. We grant a fugitive slave law because 
it is so " nominated in the bond ;" because our 
fathers so stipulated— had to — and we are bound 
to carry out this agreement. But they did not 
agree to introduce slavery in regions where it 
did not previously exist. On the contrary, they 
said by their example and teachings that they 
did not deem it expedient — did not consider it 
right — to do so ; and it is wise and right to do 
just as they did about it [Voices : " Good !"], 
and that is what we propose — not to interfere 
151 



with slavery where it exists (we have never 
tried to do it), and to give them a reasonable 
and efficient fugitive slave law. [A voice : 
"No!"] I say YES! [Applause.] It was 
part of the bargain, and I'm for living up to it ; 
but I go no further ; I'm not bound to do more, 
and I won't agree any further. [Great ap- 
plause.] 

We, here in Illinois, should feel especially 
proud of the provision of the Missouri Compro- 
mise excluding slavery from what is now Kan- 
sas ; for an Illinois man, Jesse B. Thomas, was 
its father. Henry Clay, who is credited with 
the authorship of the Compromise m general 
terms, did not even vote for that provision, but 
only advocated the ultimate admission by a sec- 
ond compromise ; and Thomas was, beyond all 
controversy, the real author of the ' ' slavery re- 
striction" branch of the Compromise. To show 
the generosity of the Northern members toward 
the Southern side ; on a test vote to exclude 
slavery from Missouri, ninety voted not to ex- 
clude, and eighty-seven to exclude, every vote 
from the slave States being ranged with the for- 
mer and fourteen votes from the free States, of 
whom seven were from New England alone ; 
while on a vote to exclude slavery from what is 
now Kansas, the vote was one hundred and 
thirty-four /"or to forty-two against. The 
scheme, as a whole, was, of course, a Southern 
triumph. It is idle to contend otherwise, as is 
now being done by the Nebraskaites ; it was 
152 



*' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

so shown by the votes and quite as emphati- 
cally by the expressions of representative men. 
Mr. Lowndes of South Carolina was never 
known to commit a political mistake ; his was 
the great judgment of that section ; and he de- 
clared that this measure " would restore tran- 
quillity to the country — a result demanded by 
every consideration of discretion, of modera- 
tion, of wisdom, and of virtue." When the 
measure came before President Monroe for his 
approval, he put to each member of his cabinet 
this question : " Has Congress the constitu- 
tional power to prohibit slavery in a territory?" 
And John C. Calhoun and William H. Craw- 
ford from the South, equally with John Quincy 
Adams, Benjamin Rush, and Smith Thompson 
from the North, alike answered, " Ves /" with- 
out qualification or equivocation ; and this meas- 
ure, of so great consequence to the South, was 
passed ; and Missouri was, by means of it, 
finally enabled to knock at the door of the Re- 
public for an open passage to its brood of slaves. 
And, in spite of this. Freedom's share is about 
to be taken by violence — by the force of mis- 
representative votes, not called for by the popu- 
lar will. What name can I, in common de- 
cency, give to this wicked transaction ? [Sen- 
sation.] 

But even then the contest was not over ; for 

when the Missouri constitution came before 

Congress for its approval, it forbade any free 

negro or mulatto from entering the State. In 

153 



Abraham Lincoln 

short, our Illinois "black laws" were hidden 
away in their constitution [Laughter] , and the 
controversy was thus revived. Then it was 
that Mr. Clay's talents shone out conspicuously, 
and the controversy that shook the Union to its 
•foundation was finally settled to the satisfaction 
of the conservative parties' on both sides of the 
line, though not to the extremists on either, and 
Missouri was admitted by the small majority of 
six in the lower House. How great a majority, 
do you think, would have been given had Kan- 
sas also been secured for slavery ? [A voice : 
"A majority the other way."] "A majority 
the other way," is answered. Do you think it 
would have been safe for a Northern man to 
have confronted his constituents after having 
voted to consign both Missouri and Kansas to 
hopeless slavery ? And yet this man Douglas, 
who misrepresents his constituents and who 
has exerted his highest talents in that direction, 
will be carried in triumph through the State 
and hailed with honor while applauding that 
act. [Three groans for '' Diig!'''\ And this 
shows whither we are tending. This thing of 
slavery is more powerful than its supporters — 
even than the high priests that minister at its 
altar. It debauches even our greatest men. It 
gathers strength, like a rolling snow-ball, by its 
own infamy. Monstrous crimes are committed 
in its name by persons collectively which they 
would not dare to commit as individuals. Its 
aggressions and encroachments almost surpass 
154 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

belief. In a despotism, one might not wonder 
to see slavery advance steadily and remorse- 
lessly into new dominions ; but is it not won- 
derful, is it not even alarming, to see its steady 
advance in a land dedicated to the proposition 
that "all men are created equal"? [Sensa- 
tion.] 

It yields nothing itself ; it keeps all it has, 
and gets all it can besides. It really came dan- 
gerously near securing Illinois in 1824 ; it did 
get Missouri in 1821. The first proposition was 
to admit what is now Arkansas and Missouri as 
one slave State. But the territory was divided, 
and Arkansas came in, without serious ques- 
tion, as a slave State : and afterward Missouri, 
not as a sort of equality, fi-ee, but also as a 
slave State. Then we had Florida and Texas ; 
and now Kansas is about to be forced into the 
dismal procession. [Sensation.] And so it is 
wherever you look. We have not forgotten — 
it is but six years since — how dangerously near 
California came to being a slave State. Texas 
is a slave State, and four other slave States may 
be carved from its vast domain. • And yet, in 
the year 1829, slavery was abolished throughout 
that vast region by a royal decree of the then 
sovereign of Mexico. Will you please tell me 
by what right slavery exists in Texas to-day ? 
By the same right as, and no higher or greater 
than, slavery is seeking dominion in Kansas : 
by political force — peaceful, if that will suffice ; 
by the torch (as in Kansas) and the bludgeon 
155 



Abraham Lincoln 

(as in the Senate chamber), if required. And 
so histor}'' repeats itself ; and even as slavery 
has kept its course by craft, intimidation, and 
violence in the past, so it will persist, in my 
judgment, until met and dominated by the will 
of a people bent on its restriction. 

We have, this very afternoon, heard bitter 
denunciations of Brooks in Washington, and 
Titus, Stringfellow, Atchison, Jones, and Shan- 
non in Kansas — the battle-ground of slavery. 
I certainly am not going to advocate or shield 
them ; but they and their acts are but the nec- 
essary outcome of the Nebraska law. We 
should reserve our highest censure for the au- 
thors of the mischief, and not for the catspaws 
which they use. I believe it was Shakespeare 
who said, " Where the oflfense lies, there let 
the axe fall ;" and, in my opinion, this man 
Douglas and the Northern men in Congress 
who advocate " Nebraska" are more guilty than 
a thousand Joneses and Stringfellows, with all 
their murderous practices, can be. [Applause.] 

We have made a good beginning here to-day. 
As our Methodist friends would say, " I feel it 
is good to be here," While extremists may 
find some fault with the moderation of our plat- 
form, they should recollect that " the battle is 
not always to the strong, nor the race to the 
swift." In grave emergencies, moderation is 
generally safer than radicalism ; and as this 
struggle is likely to be long and earnest, we 
must not, by our action, repel any who are in 
15& 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

sympathy with us in the main, but rather win 
all that we can to our standard.. We must not 
belittle nor overlook the facts of our condition 
—that we are new and comparatively weak, 
while our enemies are entrenched and relatively 
strong. They have the administration and the 
political power ; and, right or wrong, at present 
they have the numbers. Our friends who urge 
an appeal to arms with so much force and elo- 
quence, should recollect that the government is 
arrayed against us, and that the numbers are 
now arrayed against us as well ; or, to state it 
nearer to the truth, they are not yet expressly 
and affirmatively for us ; and we should repel 
friends rather than gain them by anything 
savoring of revolutionary methods. As it now 
stands, we must appeal to the sober sense and 
patriotism of the people. We will make con- 
verts day by day ; we will grow strong by calm- 
ness and moderation ; we will grow strong by 
the violence and injustice of our adversaries. 
And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a 
hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a 
while, and then the revolution which we will 
accomplish will be none the less radical from 
being the result of pacific measures. The bat- 
tle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. 
Slavery is a violation of the eternal right. We 
have temporized with it from the necessities of 
our condition ; but as sure as God rezgfts and 
school children read, that black foul lie can 

NEVER BE CONSECRATED INTO God's HALLOWED 



Abraham Lincoln 

TRUTH ! [Immense applause lasting some 
time. J One of our greatest difficulties is, that 
men who know that slavery is a detestable 
crime and ruinous to the nation, are compelled, 
by our peculiar condition and other circum- 
stances, to advocate it concretely, though damn- 
ing it in the raw. Henry Clay was a brilliant 
example of this tendency ; others of our purest 
statesmen are compelled to do so ; and thus 
slavery secures actual support from those who 
detest it at heart. Yet Henry Clay perfected 
and forced through the Compromise which 
secured to slavery a great State as well as a 
political advantage. Not that he hated slavery 
less, but that he loved the whole Union more. 
As long as slavery profited by his great Com- 
promise, the hosts of pro-slavery could not suffi- 
ciently cover him with praise ; but now that 
this Compromise stands in their way — 

"... they never mention him, 
His name is never heard : 
Their lips are now forbid to speak 
That once familiar word." 

They have slaughtered one of his most cher- 
ished measures, and his ghost would arise to 
rebuke them. [Great applause.] 

Now, let us harmonize, my friends, and ap- 
peal to the moderation and patriotism of the 
people : to the sober second thought ; to the 
awakened public conscience. The repeal of 
the sacred Missouri Compromise has installed 
the weapons of violence : the bludgeon, the in- 
158 



'* Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

cendiary torch, the death-dealing rifle, the 
bristUng cannon — the weapons of kingcraft, of 
the inquisition, of ignorance, of barbarism, of 
oppression. We see its fruits in the dying bed 
of the heroic Sumner ; in the ruins of the ' ' Free 
State" hotel ; in the smoking embers of the 
Herald of Freedom ; in the free-State Gov- 
ernor of Kansas chained to a stake on freedom's, 
soil like a horse-thief, for the crime of freedom. 
[Applause.] We see it in Christian statesmen, 
and Christian newspapers, and Christian pul- 
pits, applauding the cowardly act of a low 

bully^ WHO CRAWLED UPON HIS VICTIM BEHIND 
HIS BACK AND DEALT THE DEADLY BLOW. [ScU- 

sation and applause.] We note our political 
demoralization in the catch-words that are com- 
ing into such common use ; on the one hand, 
" freedom-shriekers," and sometimes " free- 
dom-screechers" [Laughter] ; and, on the other 
hand, " border ruffians," and that fully de- 
served. And the significance of catch-words 
cannot pass unheeded, for they constitute a 
sign of the times. Everything in this world 
"jibes" in with everything else, and all the 
fruits of this Nebraska bill are like the poisoned 
source from which they come. I will not say 
that we may not sooner or later be compelled 
to meet force by force ; but the time has not 
yet come, and if we are true to ourselves, may 
never come. Do not mistake that the ballot is 
stronger than the bullet. Therefore let the 
legions of slavery use bullets ; but let us wait 
159 



Abraham Lincoln 

patiently till November, and fire ballots at 
them in return ; and by that peaceful policy, I 
believe we shall ultimately win. [Applause.] 

It was by that policy that here in Illinois the 
early fathers fought the good fight and gained 
the victory. In 1824 the free men of our State, 
led by Governor Coles (who was a native of 
Maryland and President Madison's private sec- 
retary), determined that those beautiful groves 
should never reecho the dirge of one who ^as 
no title to himself. By their resolute determi- 
nation , the winds that sweep across our broad 
prairies shall never cool the parched brow, nor 
shall the unfettered streams that bring joy and 
gladness to our free soil water the tired feet, of 
a slave ; but so long as those heavenly breezes 
and sparkling streams bless the land, or the 
groves and their fragrance or their memory re- 
main, the humanity to which they minister 
SHALL BE FOREVER FREE ! [Great applause.J 
Palmer, Yates, Williams, Browning, and some 
more in this convention came from Kentucky 
to Illinois (instead of going to Missouri), not 
only to better their conditions, but also to get 
away from slavery. They have said so to me, 
and it is understood among us Kentuckians 
that we don't like it one bit. Now, can we, 
mindful of the blessings of liberty which the 
early men of Illinois left to us, refuse a like 
privilege to the free men who seek to plant 
Freedom's banner on our "Western outposts? 
f" No ! No !"] Should we not stand by our 
160 



" Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

neighbors who seek to better their conditions 
in Kansas and Nebraska? [" Yes ! Yes !"] 
Can we as Christian men, and strong and free 
ourselves, wield the sledge or hold the iron 
which is to manacle anew an already oppressed 
race? ["No! No!"] " Woe nnto them," it 
is written, "that decree unrighteous decrees 
and that write grievousness which they have 
prescribed." Can we afford to sin any more 
deeply 'i_gainst human liberty ? [" No ! No !"J 
One great trouble in the matter is, that 
slavery is an insidious and crafty power, and 
gains equally by open violence of the brutal as 
well as by sly management of the peaceful. 
Even after the ordinance of 1787, the settlers in 
Indiana and Illinois (it was all one government 
then) tried to get Congress to allow slavery 
temporarily, and petitions to that end were sent 
from Kaskaskia, and General Harrison, the 
Governor, urged it from Vincennes, the cap- 
ital. If that had succeeded, good-by to liberty 
here. But John Randolph of Virginia made a 
vigorous report against it ; and although they 
persevered so well as to get three favorable re^ 
ports for it, yet the United States Senate, with 
the aid of some slave States, finally squelched 
it for good. [Applause.] And that is why 
this hall is to-day a temple for free men instead 
of a negro livery stable. [Great applause and 
I laughter.] Once let slavery get planted in a 
locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a title, and 
in ever so small numbers, rnd it is like the Can- 
161 



Abraham Lincoln 

ada thistle or Bermuda grass — you can't root it 
out. You yourself may detest slavery ; but 
your neighbor has five or six slaves, and he is 
an excellent neighbor, or your son has married 
his daughter, and they beg you to help save 
their property, and you vote against your inter- 
est and principles to accommodate a neighbor, 
hoping that your vote will be on the losing side. 
And others do the same ; and in those ways 
slavery gets a sure foothold. And when that 
is done the whole mighty Union — the force of 
the nation — is committed to its support. And 
that very process is working in Kansas to-day. 
And you must recollect that the slave property 
is worth a billion of dollars ($1,000,000,000) ; 
while free-State men must work for sentiment 
alone. Then there are " blue lodges" — as they 
call them — everywhere doing their secret and 
deadly work. 

It is a very strange thing, and not solvable 
by any moral law that I know of, that if a man 
loses his horse, the whole country will turn out 
to help hang the thief ; but if a man but a 
shade or two darker than I am is himself stolen, 
the same crowd will hang one who aids in re- 
storing him to liberty. Such are the inconsis- | 
tencies of slavery, where a horse is more sacred 
than a man ; and the essence of squatter or 
popular sovereignty — I don't care how you call 
it — is that if one man chooses to make a slave 
of another, no third man shall be allowed to 
object. And if you can do this in free Kansas, 
162 



''Lincoln's Lost Speech" 

and it is allowed to stand, the next thing you 
will see is ship loads of negroes from Africa at 
the wharf at Charleston ; for one thing is as 
truly lawful as the other ; and these are the 
bastard notions we have got to stamp out, else 
they will stamp us out. [Sensation and ap- 
plause.] 

Two years ago, at Springfield, Judge Douglas 
avowed that Illinois came into the Union as a 
slave State, and that slavery was weeded out 
by the operation of his great, patent, ever- 
lasting principle of "popular sovereignty." 
[Laughter,] "Well, now, that argument must 
be answered, for it has a little grain of truth at 
the bottom. I do not mean that it is true in 
essence, as he would have us believe. It could 
not be essentially true if the ordinance of '87 
was valid. But, in point of fact, there were 
some degraded beings called slaves in Kaskas- 
kia and the other French settlements when our 
first State constitution was adopted ; that is a 
fact, and I don't deny it. Slaves were brought 
here as early as 1720, and were kept here in 
spite of the ordinance of 1787 against it. But 
slavery did not thrive here. On the contrary, 
under the influence of the ordinance, the num- 
ber decreased fiity-one from 18 10 to 1820 ; while 
under the influence of sqtcaiter sovereignty, 
right across the river in Missouri, they Z7icr eased 
seven thousand two hundred and eleven in the 
same time ; and slavery finally faded out in 
Illinois, under the influence of the law of free- 
163 



Abraham Lincoln 

dom, while it grew stronger and stronger in 
Missouri, under the law or practice of " popular 
sovereignty." In point of fact there were but 
one hundred and seventeen slaves in Illinois 
one year after its admission, or one to every 
four hundred and seventy of its population ; or, 
to state it in another way, if Illinois was a slave 
State m 1S20, so were New York and New Jer- 
sey much greater slave States from having had 
greater numbers, slavery having been estab- 
lished there in very early times. But there is 
this vital difference between all these States 
and the judge's Kansas experiment : that they 
sought to disestablish slavery which had been 
already established, while the judge seeks, so 
far as he can, to disestablish freedom, which 
had been established there by the Missouri 
Compromise. [Voices : " Good !"] 

The Union is undergoing a fearful strain ; 
but it is a stout old ship, and has weatherec. 
many a hard blow, and "the stars .{'-their 
courses," aye, an invisible power, greater than 
the puny efforts of men, will fight for us. But 
we ourselves must not decline the burden of re- 
sponsibility, nor take counsel of unworthy pas- 
sions. Whatever duty urges us to do or to 
omit, must be done or omitted ; and the reck- 
lessness with which our adversaries break the 
laws, or counsel their violation, should afford 
no example for us. Therefore, let us revere 
the Declaration of Independence ; let us con- 
tinue to obey the Constitution and the laws ; 
164 



''Lincoln's Lost Speech" 

.et us keep step to the music of the Union. Let 
IS draw a cordon, so to speak, around the slave 
States, and the hateful institution, like a reptile 
poisoning itself, will perish by its own infamy. 
[Applause.] 

But we cannot be free men if this is, by our 
national choice, to be a land of slavery. Those 
who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for 
themselves ; and, under the rule of a just God, 
cannot long retain it. [Loud applause.] 
. Did you ever, my friends, seriously reflect 
upon the speed with which we are tending 
downward ? Within the memory of men now 
present the leading statesmen of Virginia could 
make genuine, red-hot abolitionist speeches in 
old Virginia ; and, as I have said, now even in 
" free Kansas" it is a crime to declare that it is 
''free Kansas." The very sentiments that I 
and others have just uttered would entitle us, 
fnd each of us, to the ignominy and seclusion 
of a r.^ngeon ; and yet I suppose that, like 
Paul, we were " free born." But if this thing 
is allowed to continue, it will be but one step 
further to impress the same rule in Illinois. 
fSensation.] 

.; The conclusion of all is, that we must restore 
the Missouri Compromise. We must highly re- 
solve that Kansas must be free ! [Great ap- 
plause.] We must reinstate the birthday prom- 
ise of the Republic ; we must reaffirm the Dec- 
laration of Independence ; we must make good 
in essence as well as in form Madison's avowal 
165 



Abraham Lincoln 

that " the word slave ought not to appear in 
the Constitution ;" and we must even go fur- 
ther, and decree that only local law, and not 
that time-honored instrument, shall shelter a 
slave-holder. We must make this a land of 
liberty in fact, as it is in name. But in seeking 
to attain these results — so indispensable if the 
liberty which is our pride and boast shall en- 
dure — we will be loyal to the Constitution and 
to the " flag of our Union," and no matter 
what our grievance — even though Kansas shall 
come in as a slave State ; and no matter what 
theirs — even if we shall restore the Compromise 
— we will say to the southern disunionists, 
We won't go out of the Union, and you 
SHAN'T ! ! ! [This was the climax ; the audi- 
ence rose to its feet e7i masse, applauded, 
stamped, waved handkerchiefs, threw hats in 
the air, and ran riot for several minutes. The 
arch-enchanter who wrought this transforma- 
tion looked, meanwhile, like the personification 
of political justice.] 

But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense 
and patriotism of the people, and not to their 
prejudices ; let us spread the floods of enthusi- 
asm here aroused all over these vast prairies, 
so suggestive of freedom. Let us commence 
by electing the gallant soldier Governor (Col- 
onel) Bissell who stood for the honor of our 
State alike on the plains and amidst the chapar- 
ral of Mexico and on the floor of Congress, 
while he defied the Southern Hotspur ; and 
1 66 



*' Lincoln's Lost Speech " 

that will have a greater moral effect than all 
the border ruffians can accomplish in all their 
raids on Kansas. There is both a power and a 
magic in popular opinion. To that let us now 
appeal ; and while, in all probability, no resort 
to force will be needed, our moderation and 
forbearance will stand us in good stead when, 
if ever, we must make an appeal to battle and 
TO THE God of hosts ! ! [Immense applause 
and a rush for the orator.] 



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